


Finding a home

by livestolearn



Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Alien Sex, Burnout - Freeform, Child abuse/rape/violence appear only in chapter 7, Depression, Eventual Relationships, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Female-Centric, Femslash, First Time, Past Child Abuse, Romance, Slow-ish burn, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2018-09-06 11:28:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 15
Words: 38,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8748880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livestolearn/pseuds/livestolearn
Summary: After days of problems on Voyager B'Elanna Torres is exhausted and ready to murder someone when all of a sudden she finds herself back in time lost in the Nevada Desert. She is forced to set herself up to survive in this hostile century with no support and no contact from her ship. Loneliness is her only companion until she meets another lost soul just like her. Sara Sidle finds an unlikely source of support from the eccentric inventor that B'Elanna has become.  This story follows their love affair through time.





	1. "What the hell?"

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing but the plot. 
> 
> Please read and review :) 
> 
> Enjoy.
> 
> ********************************************************************

B’Elanna Torres grunted under the weight of the kit on her back as she stormed out of engineering. Swearing under her breath when the lights dimmed, she maneuvered around an engineering team running in the opposite direction and jogged off. The chief engineer (who was beginning wondering if it was the Day of Honor) did not look like herself. Not only was she tired to the bone from being on shift for more than 48 hours; she was in non-regulation civilian clothes because that’s all the replicator would spit out for her. She’d had to change when the gravity plating malfunctioned in the mess hall. Of course, the fact that she’d been lying under the pot of noxious smelling ‘soup’ fixing a malfunctioning burner when the gravity returned was just pure bad luck. She’d lost an hour getting the burns healed in sickbay.   

Deciding to take the jefferies tubes, since the turbo lifts were unreliable at best, she started the five deck climb to her destination. This latest call was from her frantic on again off again boyfriend Tom Paris. He was stuck behind a force field that had no business being there. Of course, this meant she had to deal with the insufferable Doctor who’d been stuck in sickbay for the last 33 hours. Again Torres cursed, wondering why the man could not understand that his mobile emitter wasn’t a priority. The main concern was keeping the air flowing and the inertial dampeners online, not to mention the warp core! At least she might make him happy by returning it, even if it wasn’t quite working yet. She just didn’t have the time.  

About half way up, somewhere between deck seven and eight, B’elanna started to feel woozy. Worried that she was going to fall, she reversed her course, heading carefully back down to deck eight. As she climbed the short distance down, the rungs on the ladder started to warp until she couldn’t get a grip on any of them. Torres wasn’t sure if it was her head or the tunnel. Not willing to take the chance that it was the structural integrity, she dropped down the last few rungs and hit the blessedly solid tunnel floor with a hollow clang.

She clawed at the access hatch and leaped through. She tucked and rolled, bracing herself for an impact with the hard deck of the deuterium refinery. Instead of a painful impact, her body sunk into a soft grainy material. The roll turned into a sprawl when another wave of disorientation hit her.

The cool and somewhat stale air of Voyager suddenly changed and a dry incredibly hot gust of wind blew the engineers hair wildly about. Instead of feeling the deck beneath her, there was extremely hot sand digging into her cheek. Pushing herself up, she stood slowly. Finally shaking the disorientation, she took in her surroundings. B’Elanna gasped, “What the hell?” Stretching out in every direction was a vast desert. 

She brushed the sand off her hands quickly and hit her communicator, “Torres to bridge…Torres to Voyager… Voyager please respond…”

Nothing.

“Computer Exit… Computer respond. Computer Arch?” She tried repeatedly until she decided that the system must be out. “OK now what?” She decided the first thing to do was pinch herself. When a sharp pain followed the pinch she commented aloud “nope not dreaming. Maybe I fell down the tube and I’m dead. No that doesn’t make sense this is too nice to be Gre’Thor. Malfunctioning holodeck? but I wasn’t even near a holodeck so how could I be in one. OK, spatial anomaly, hostile invasion, Q, temporal anomaly, coma, hallucination, telepathic pitcher plants, transporter accident, one of Tom’s jokes, it could be anything.” She paused her speculations for a moment and chuckled, “Crap my life is strange.”

Torres thought back to her basic Starfleet Academy training and found nothing about walking from a Jefferies tube into a desert, so she decided the best course of action was to think like a Voyager Crewman. She ran through some of the emergency protocols Janeway had implemented over the years. “OK, so when you wake up where you’re not supposed to be first try contacting the ship. Done and didn’t work. Then find a defensible position, inventory supplies, ensure that I don’t break the damn prime directive, and find out where the hell I am.” Having decided on a plan and began to look for something other than a sand dune to sit on.

About three hundred yards to her right a large rock outcropping jutted from the soil, it was surrounded by a small growth of terrestrial looking plants. “That looks promising.” Torres began the short trek south. While she was walking, she pulled out the bandana she’d been using as a rag all day and tied it around her forehead to stave off sunstroke. It still smelled like engine grease, which was comforting. 

Quite sure that no one was around; she continued to talk to herself. “The most important things are water, food, shelter, and get back to the ship.” Torres arrived at the hill, looking around, she chose a slightly shaded spot and scraped back a layer of soil, she squeaked and fell back when a five inch long, eight legged scorpion skittered across her shoe. “OK, defiantly terrestrial, and possibly dinner if I absolutely have to.” She scared the thing off with a stiff pointed leaf from a tall treelike growth. The leaves stood pointing straight up to the sky in clumps; it’s shaggy at the top and rough at the bottom looked vaguely familiar. Carefully, she scanned the area again for other creepy-crawlies before sitting down. She began emptying her pockets and her overstocked kit.

As the early morning sun beat down on her, she scanned her supplies. She had all the normal tools an engineer carried around in addition to a few power packs, and a gel pack. Beneath that, she found a small med kit and a medical ticorder. “Thank you Tom Paris for insisting I stay safe.” Other than that she had the mobile emitter “oh the doctor’s gonna kill me when I get back.” She was happy to find several ration packs shoved into the bottom of the case along with a bottle of water “only half full, but still”. There were a few other odds and ends that would likely come in handy too. Now she was knew what she had. The next question to answer, where was she?

After glancing around for watchers she flipped the tricorder open and began scanning her surroundings. Her fingers went numb and fear gripped her, her hand flew up to the scarf around her head, pulling it farther down to cover her forehead ridges. The scan beeped away quietly as it informed her she was on earth during the early twenty first century. Pollution levels, ozone degradation, radiation, and the number of satellites in orbit scrolled across the screen.

“Shit.” The last time she’d been in this particular desert, had been in 1996 when crazy humans who thought she was a government spy had nearly killed her. “I wonder what year I’m in this time.”

Her scan showed a very large city (by earth twenty first century standards anyway) a few miles to the southeast. If she went, she might be able to come up with a better shelter than this spindly little tree. However, there was a larger consideration; she had to find a more secure method of covering up her Klingon features. The emitter caught some light out of the corner of her eye; she smiled and picked it up. “I bet I can program this thing to cover me up…”

It took a few frustrating minutes before Torres was pinning the emitter (which was working perfectly now) to the inside of her tank top and rubbing her smooth (human looking) forehead. The hologram itched a bit and her hair fell oddly but it was bearable. Packing up her kit, she slung it over her shoulder and started to walk. 

By the time she reached the city, it was early evening. She was thirsty and hot. She’d eaten one of her rations, slowly finished the last of her water, and was looking forward to finding a place to sleep. A sign with fitfully hissing and buzzing florescent lighting hung over a building across the road from where B’Elanna emerged from the desert. After filling in the missing letters it read “Welcome to Las Vegas Nevada, Cheep rentals, Vacancy”. B’Elanna took a moment to chuckle, she’d always teased Tom for dropping the first ‘a’ in vacancy on the motels in his holo-novels, she’d have to apologize. 

She approached the door with no little trepidation. After a moment of hesitation, Torres took herself in hand and pushed the door open. The sound of a bell ringing from the top of the door followed by a wave of freezing air heralded her entrance. The doors lead to a smallish, musty smelling room with a desk and a few chairs, all of which had all seen better days.

“Can I help ya Miss?” An old man, who looked just shy of a hundred, drawled from behind the desk. His stooped form barely straightening as he squinted up at her over the rim of his glasses.

“Um, sure… Uh” Torres stumbled because she knew from Tom that they would expect some type of currency from her for a room. Her hesitancy annoyed him, which added a few extra years onto his wrinkled features.

“Room’s 65 bucks a night.”

“Oh, um… look I don’t have any bucks… I mean dollars, I lost them all in the desert; I uh fell and can’t find them.”

“Well, I can’t help ya then.” He turned away after a brief snort of derision.

“Is there something I could do to earn a room? Maybe trade labor or something, I’ve been wandering out there for a while and it’s hot.”

“Of course it’s hot girl, it’s the desert.” The man squinted at her so hard B’Elanna was sure he would see right through the emitter. She didn’t think that he would respond, but after a long moment of consideration, he asked, “What can ya do?”

“Anything you ask, I’m strong and can work magic on a computer.” She figured that with her technology fixing things it would seem like magic so it wasn’t exactly a lie.

“I ain’t got no computers round here that need fixin’, but I could use a hand cleanin’ some rooms. One o’ my maids didn’t show. I also got firewood that needs choppin’, but I don’t think y’re strong enough for that girl.”

Never before had someone dared to refuse to let her do something because of her gender, suddenly all those history lessons in elementary school about women’s rights began to make sense. She wondered how anything ever got done if women weren’t expected to pull their weight. “Actually, I’d prefer to chop wood, I had to do that once and I found it cathartic” she offered, cleaning wasn’t her strong suit.

“Tell you what, you clean two rooms plus your own and chop the pile of wood out there” he gestured to an impossibly large stack of uncut two foot logs in the back “and I’ll give ya a meal, fifty dollars and a room for the night. If you do good work, you can stay longer.”

“I’ll take your deal if I can have some water.” The man chuckled and pointed to a water cooler in the corner.

“Water’s free. A lot of people come wanderin’ in here from the heat beggin.’ I ain’t turned no one away yet. Just don’t expect the city folks to be so nice further in ta Vegas they’re more likely to fleece ya and get ya to sell yur body fer a flee bitten mat on the floor.”

“I’ll take that under advisement. Thank you.” B’Elanna was genuinely grateful; she really didn’t want to end up selling herself. She’d have to remember that these human’s weren’t honorable and would more likely hurt her then help her. “When can I get started?”

“Tell ya what, you look about ready to drop, go catch a few winks, cool off, and I’ll get you up in a few hours and you can get to work on the choppin’.” He tossed Torres key and gave her directions. Just as she was about to walk out of the room he shouted out to her “Hey, what do I call ya girl?”

Suddenly, it occurred to B’Elanna that her name would sound very strange to some people; she hesitated only for a second before replying “Torres, B’Elanna Torres.” It probably sounded strange, but it was better than refusing to answer until she could come up with a better name. The old man grunted and waved her away.

B’Elanna took a few minutes to figure out how to use the archaic metal key then she swung the door open. The room was a disaster, the bed was unmade, the sheets were dirty and there was garbage all over the dingy room. However, at this point she was asleep on her feet so she didn’t care. She pulled the sheets off, tossed them on the floor, pulled the light comforter over her body and fell into a deep sleep. 

A loud series of knocks woke B’Elanna with a start, confused by the abnormal sound. She sat up and looked around, “well that confirms it this isn’t a dream.”

“Girl, wake up, we got things ta do!” He was just a bit intimidating to her, but his tone still roused her ire.

“Yeah, yeah I’ll be out in a second… Sir” She only heard grumbling for a response.

Once she’d tried voyager again and checked her reflection in the mirror, she grabbed the key and her kit leaving the filthy room behind. The old man was back behind his desk and simply pointed toward the pile leaving her to find the ax and begin to cut.

Two hours later, she looked up when someone called her name. This voice (unlike the old man’s) was pleasant and educated. She’d managed a good start on the job, the quartered logs neatly stacked on the woodpile.

“You finish that by tomorrow evening and I’ll give you a hundred dollars.” This person was a woman nearly as old as the man. She reached out to shake B’Elanna’s hand without any hesitation. Her clear clipped speech and neatly pressed dress made her seem like the epitome of culture when compared to her gruff husband. 

“Uh, thanks… How much do you usually spend on this?”

“About $600, but the kid we hire is family.”

B’Elanna laughed, “Maybe I should be asking for more?” The woman smiled. “On the other hand, beggars can’t be choosers and I need all I can get.”

“Just go double your earnings. That’s what everyone else expects to do.” Torres laughed along with the joke, even though she didn’t really understand it. “Well, you did well today. You’re much faster than the boy we usually hire. I’ll add in breakfast and lunch.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. My husband is cheap, I don’t mind helping out.” They walked toward the motel in silence for a few moments. “You ever been to Vegas before?”

“No actually I haven’t, I’m not from around here.”

“Well, if you want to take in the sites we’ve got brochures in the main office don’t be afraid to pick up a bunch. I’ll send you down to the government office to replace your ID tomorrow. Jackson told me you lost your purse out there?” She gestured vaguely toward the sand and scrub.

“Yeah, I hope I can get replacements, I’m not even sure how.”

“Well, I can get you onto a website that will explain it all. Are you an American Citizen?”

B’Elanna thought for a second, deciding that since she went to the Academy in San Francisco she wouldn’t be lying if she said yes.

“Well, you should be on record then. I’ll get you the website and that’ll tell you what you need.” By this point, they’d entered a restaurant. “Sit here and order whatever you want. You’ve had a rough day.” While she was eating blessedly normal food, she noticed a newspaper with the date on it September 3, 2006. Now she knew the date and her location, the biggest obstacle left was getting back to the ship.    

After eating, chopping more wood, and cleaning two rooms it was nearing midnight. Once again, Torres fell asleep under a comforter, sheets right where she’d left them. At least this time she was able to take her pants and top off.

She awoke again at 0900 glad that she’d trained her body to work on very little sleep. She finished off the pile several hours later. The old man, Jackson, shuffled over and nodded in satisfaction. “Here girl, someone left these here ‘bout a month ago, Gloria figure’s they’d fit ya. We was gonna throw it out soon anyways.”

“Thanks so much.”

“Now Gloria’s inside waitin’ for ya.”

“Thanks Sir.” B’Elanna shook the man’s hand and took the bag of cloths back to her room. They were well made, mostly dresses, which made Torres grimace, but at least they were clean. She pulled on a simple black dress and went to find Gloria. The matriarch of the motel showed her the ancient (to B’Elanna’s mind) laptop and then left. B’Elanna was very happy she did because she was able to scan it with her tricorder to figure out how to work it.

About an hour later, she’d managed to break through the primitive security system and register herself with all the ID’s she needed for every contingency. She’d faked an address, ordered them, and told the system that she’d already provided the needed information. It was going to cost her just about $100 so she hoped her benefactors wouldn’t renege on their agreement. 

Thankfully, they didn’t. In fact, because she’d done such a good job and they felt bad for her; they ended up paying her minimum wage. She walked out with $200 and an employee card to use for ID, and something called a reference.

With only a bit of hassle, she was able to pick up the ID that day. She had $103 left so she decided to head back to the motel and give them back some of what they’d given her. She booked a room and made a few extra dollars raking the yard and cutting the grass. She even took some time to fix the blasted light because the buzz was driving her mad.

B’Elanna worked at the Dune’s Motel for a week, waiting for Voyager to come find her. She’d eliminated hallucinations, dreams, a prank, and Gre’Thor, which meant she was stuck. She needed to start thinking of ways to send a message to her people. She couldn’t do that where she was so she started to look for a place to set up a workspace.

She was wandering down Las Vegas Boulevard after her shift at the hotel when she passed a computer store. Inside was something called an iPod with ‘new’ 60 GB capacity. That was when the idea struck her, if she could ‘invent’ things, make basic improvements on an entertainment device, it wouldn’t influence the timeline much. Well, other than speeding up things by a month or two (especially if she didn’t patent what she was making, just sell the designs to a larger think tank) it would help her make enough cash to survive.

“Torres you know that’s a load of crap and Janeway will have your head.” She scolded herself before choosing to ignore her conscience (which was yelling at her in Janeway’s voice). She’d to survive here and her best skill was not cleaning rooms and chopping wood. With that in mind, she blew her entire paycheck on a top of the line laptop and began researching places looking for an inventor. She couldn’t get a position at any of the technology institutes, but there was one smaller establishment willing to hire her on a trial basis. On September 10, 2006 B’Elanna Torres started her first day as an employee at the Nevada Clean Earth Society for Research and Development. 

Her position required her to research environmentally friendly devices and ways to reverse global warming. Since she was positive that there was no way she’d accidentally stumble upon a cure for the degradation of the environment without an entire twenty-fourth century lab, she was happy to take the position and come up with way to reduce ‘carbon footprints.’ Now as long as she could figure out what a carbon footprint was she’d be doing great.

In a lab of her own, within a few weeks, she’d helped devise a way to reduce water consumption in toilets; it was a huge bonus that it also reduced the need for harsh chemicals normally used in toilet bowls. The fact that the simple device was compatible with most systems and easy to install made her a very popular inventor with the boss. NCES paid her for the design and proceeded to patent the device under their name. She was happy to see her newly acquired bank account swell enough to rent a condominium in a moderately wealthy area of town. She signed on permanently that day. She was given a regular paycheck totaling ten thousand per month and a much bigger lab. She began making small purchases that would help her boost her distress signal on standard federation frequencies.     

Weeks, then months passed, B’Elanna had improved a solar panel design, developed a wind turbine that captured and stored energy more efficiently and a way of capturing and recycling condensation to water the plants in the society’s front lawn.

Between researching earth laws, colloquialisms, behavioral expectations, using the television to explore social cues, working every day, tweaking her distress call to avoid breaking transmission laws, and cataloging local archeological finds to bring back to Chakotay, B’Elanna was finding herself stimulated and actually having fun. She missed home, she missed working with real technology and she missed Tom sure, but this wasn’t so bad. She felt like a human and felt permitted to _be_ acting like a human, she was actually happy.

Or rather, she would be happy if she weren’t so lonely. All those years stuck on Voyager, dealing with the same 145 people day in and day out she’d never realized just how much she liked them. Sure, she socialized with the people at work, but thanks to competition for grants and pressure from the boss, they weren’t friends. She didn’t have anyone to spend time with after work. She missed Tom and Harry. Moreover, enforced celibacy was not something Torres handled well.

This loneliness sent her to a bar called The Badlands Saloon late on a Saturday evening.


	2. You're not from around here are you?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Torres meets someone as lonely as she is.

B’Elanna Torres made her way the Badlands Saloon hoping to relax and ease some of her loneliness. The saloon (that sounded like home) turned out to be a country western place. The taxidermy animals and bovine motif wasn’t her cup of tea, but the whisky was strong and there were a ton of people around.

If there was one habit she’d gained since arriving on earth it was clothes shopping, half of her check went to clothes and the rest got split up between rent, bills and other necessaries. That new interest meant that Torres had dressed carefully for this trip. She was in a black and vivid red top with a plunging neckline and a form fitting black pencil skirt with three-inch black pumps. She wished she had a cowboy hat.

The place it’s self was just like one Tom had created a few years ago; he’d described it as the “wild west” and he’d been bang on. It was almost surprising that there were no side arms in evidence and no horses outside. The number of men in the place was a bit odd but they were lively and kind of fun to watch. She scanned the room for someone to go chat up when she saw a lone female sitting in the far corner away from the rest of the action.   

Normally, Torres wouldn’t have bothered the woman, but something in her expression told her that this woman was just as lonely as she was. Watching the fourth beer bottle arrive at her table in less than a half hour decided her. Grabbing her drink, B’Elanna began weaving her way around the make shift dance floor where several dozen well-muscled men were dancing.

She didn’t need to be a Betazoid to feel the depression coming off the women in waves. For some reason, she felt a flutter of nerves as she pulled the chair out and sat down across from her.

“I’m not looking for an easy fuck, I don’t buy prostitutes, and no I don’t have any drugs.”

Being taken aback by the abrupt opening didn’t faze B’Elanna a bit. “I’m not interested in easy fucks either, I don’t buy prostitutes, and I find drug abuse repulsive.”

Startled brown eyes met hers, “what do you want then?”

She searched for an opening that didn’t include ‘you look like you’re about to kill yourself if someone doesn’t intervene’ and came up with; “Actually, I was hoping you could tell me why I’ve been in this bar for nearly an hour and not a single guy has said a word to me.”

The hostility evaporated. “It’s a gay bar…,” she said sarcastically.

“What? Oh…” Understanding dawned and B’Elanna started to laugh. She was glad when she’s read a sign saying welcome to Fruit Loop Las Vegas near her condo. It lead her to research the meaning of gay and lesbian. That show on late night cable called L-word had finished her education in the matter. “Why are you here then?”

“Me? I’m as far away from my co-workers and anyone who will know me as possible.”

“oh…”

“You’re not from here are you?” That was normally a back handed insult from locals to tourists, but from this women it was more suspicious, as if she didn’t trust anyone.

“Ha, no not really.”

“Not really?” She’d begun pushing back her chair as if getting ready to leave.

“I live a few blocks from here, but I’m not from here. I grew up in San Francisco.” B’Elanna was glad she’d solidified her back-story over the last few months because that seemed to be enough for the strange women across the table.

“Really? What part?”

“The Sunset District.”

“I’m from the Tamales Bay area.”

“I never really got up that way. You talk like a local how long have you lived here?”

“Six years or so.”

“I’ve only been here a few months. Obviously, I’m still getting use to it.”

“Yeah, I can tell. How’d you choose this place?”

B’Elanna blushed; she’d chosen the bar because the name reminded her of home, but that answer would bring in too many questions. “The name caught my attention and it was quieter than the strip.”

“Really?” They both glanced at the crowd around them. “Could ‘a fooled me.”

“It’s not my fault that I had to pick the only bar in the area with a line dancing competition. So what’s your name?”

“Sara Sidle yours?”

“B’Elanna Torres” She had decided the day she filled out her ID requests that her real name was smarter if Voyager decided to come looking for her. She’d be easier to find, especially if she’d been killed.

“Interesting name.”

“Thanks, I’ve never really liked it. I swear my mother was an alien or something.” To avoid being caught in a lie as she created her story, she chose to use as much reality as possible. “Most people either call me B or Lanna. I’m good with either. I had a friend once who called me BLT.”

“I wish my mom had given me a more interesting name, Sara’s so boring.”

“I like it, it’s simple and I bet no one asks you how to spell it.” The comment earned her a smile.

“You would think.”

“I introduce myself and people either think I’m a terrorist and leave or they immediately ask how it’s spelled even if they don’t need to know.”

After a short chuckle, they both fell silent, during which time Sara finished her fifth beer and ordered another, B’Elanna finished her whiskey and the bazaar nature of the dancing started to sink in. “This is the strangest dancing I think I’ve ever seen. Where do they learn it?”

“What? Oh, yeah I have no idea; I think they were all born with the knowledge. Look, I just had the most unbearable day at work and I was actually trying to….”

“Oh I’m sorry I’m bothering you, I’ll go…” Torres began to push herself up from the table.

“No wait, that’s not what I was going to say. I don’t normally do this, but what the hell, I feel like being reckless. Since we are in a gay bar, I figure I should clarify, I’m not gay. However, I do think I’d like to hit the town with someone other than my co-workers. My boss insists that I need to get a life outside work and it’d serve him right if I were murdered while doing it. Want me to show you the town?”

Torres didn’t even hesitate, this woman was fascinating and it seemed like she needed to let loose a bit. “As long as you’re not a murderer either; where too?”

“Should we call a cab?”

“I think that’d be best.” It had to be, Sara had to be drunk and Torres couldn’t drive.

At first, Sara was reserved, suspicious of everything and kept her distance from the other woman.  But as the night wore on and the alcohol kicked in she opened up. They made their way to the strip. Sara showed her some of the casino ins and outs. They spent the night laughing and chatting. They played a few slots and a hand of poker before the crowds got too much for both of them.

They headed the outskirts of the city and found themselves in a little hole in the wall club. It could have been Sandrine’s, B’Elanna immediately relaxed. The crack of the balls on the pool table reminding her of home. She’d just found her new favorite place to drink.

“Let’s play a round of pool,” Sara suggested.

“I’d love too, but I gotta tell you I’ve never played.”

“I may be trashed, but I can see a hustle a mile away. I listen to people lie to me every day.”

Torres laughed and started to rack up expertly. Sara was so drunk that they gave up before all the balls were sunk and handed the table off to someone less inebriated. B’Elanna ordered a coffee and a few waters for the two of them.

“You know, I’ve been with you all night and I still don’t know what it was that made your day so horrid.”

“Ah, I… I investigate crime scenes and the last one was just sad. Plus, I got into a fight with a bitch of a former co-worker.”

Torres winced with sympathy. “I know about fighting with co-workers, when I was much younger, I broke a co-workers nose when he pissed me off. I’m glad I’ve learned control since then, Carey and I even became friends after. What was the fight about?” Sara looked at B’Elanna, shock evident in her gaze; she was worried she’d said something to scare the woman off, “What?”

“You ask about the fight not the job?”

“I know what a CSI does, it’s a good profession.”

“Just most people get hung up on the ‘you spend your day with dead people’ thing.”

“Well, I wouldn’t mind hearing about it someday because catching murderers is honorable, but right now it’s the fight that’s got you out here taking strangers on tours around the city. I would prefer if I was able to be sure you don’t get murdered some other day.”

Sara laughed drunkenly and held her coffee cup up in a salute. “She quit and came back as a detective, the bitch gets mad when I got stuck doing something more important, so she reverts to a CSI and does my job, badly. Not to mention she’s trying to get in my boss’s pants.”

“Yeah, that’d piss me off to. I don’t let anyone into my lab, not even cleaning staff. I don’t think I can speak to the boss thing though, mine’s attractive, but she’s high maintenance and you might end up with a new crime scene if I spent too much time with her. She’s a perfectionist and I’d probably kill her eventually… or she’d kill me I’m not sure which.”

“Lab?”

“Yeah, I work over at NCES.”

“Never heard of it, NCIS sure…”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that was a conscious joke on Ambers’ part she made some comments about teasing an ex-boyfriend who’s a Navy Agent in DC. Nevada Clean Earth Society, I’m an environmental technologist.”

“Really? Now that sounds like a low stress job, unlike mine.”

“Low stress? Are you kidding? No output no job. Publish or perish. Not to mention the competitiveness among my co-workers.”

“Well, at least you’re not deciding peoples futures based on some sliver of evidence that may or may not be exculpatory.” A deep depression settled over Sara for a minute before she shook herself, “but that’s beside the point. I got the night off and I plan to enjoy it.”

“What do you mean plan to? It’s 7 am.”

Sara glanced at her watch, caught off guard by the time. “Well, whaddya know … I hope you don’t have to work today.”

“Only if I feel like it, which I don’t. How ‘bout we go get a cab and I’ll take you home.”

“Sure, thanks, I’m not sure I can stand right now.” Torres smiled while helping the inebriated woman up. She paid the tab and hailed a cab. Not for the first time in her life thanking her Klingon half for the increased alcohol tolerance. She was drunk for sure, slurred speech and all, but her coordination didn’t suffer.

Sara gave the cabby slurred directions to her apartment on the other side of town. Sara was asleep when they arrived.

After dropping the cabby some cash, Torres asked him to wait for her to get back. She roused her sleeping companion enough to get her inside and in bed. Torres left some water and an aspirin (a trick she’d learned off the internet to cope with hangovers) along with a note containing her name, phone number and “Thanks for the tour, it’s been a while since I was able have some fun. Call me if you want to do it again.”

B’Elanna slipped out of the apartment. Locking the door behind her.

With a satisfied groan she fell into her bed and slept like the dead. This was the first day she forgot to check if Voyager had found her.

A few hours later, she was up, went for a run and headed for the office to work on a project she had going.

When she got home that night, there was a message on her machine, “Hey, it’s Sara, thanks, I needed last night more than I thought.”

There was a click and that was it. Torres figured that since she hadn’t left a number she wouldn’t hear from her again, and she didn’t, not for another two weeks.


	3. Shopping and Picnics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara finally calls and wants a day away from work. B'Elanna is happy to help.
> 
> Comments and support are always welcome! Thank you for reading :)

To stave off loneliness Torres buried herself in a project and took to reading books. She’d been back from her early morning run for about an hour, when out of the blue B’Elanna got a call. She closed “The Art of War” and glanced outside, the sun was barely up, but it looked like it would be a beautiful Saturday.

“Hello”

“Hi, may I speak with B’Elanna please.”

Not recognizing the voice right away B’Elanna continued professionally, “Speaking.”

“Um, I’m not sure if you’re going to remember me, I’m Sara… Sara Sidle.”

“Sara! How could I forget? How are you?”

“Good. Yourself?”

“Wonderful. What can I do for you?”

“Well, I know it’s early, but I just got off shift and was hoping to do something… I don’t know girly or frivolous, something out of character. Are you in?”

A grin spread across B’Elanna’s face, “I’d love to! What do you have in mind?”

“I have no idea. That’s why I’m calling.”

“How about we go to the mall?”

“Well that fits with the out of character criteria.”

“We could always go to a spa…”

“Ew, do you know how much bacteria those places have?”

“Why don’t we start at the mall and decide what we want to do from there?”

“OK, sounds like a plan. Maybe even just the right amount of abnormal to shake off my life for a bit.” 

A bit of alarm ran down B’Elanna’s spine, this sensation seeking reminded her of herself not so long ago. At the time she’d been trying to do anything that would cause injury so she could feel something. The Doctor had said it was clinical depression. She shook off the memory and replied. “Great, I’ll meet you at Fashion Show Mall, in front of the red velvet café on the lower east level Zone B in an hour; I’ll introduce you to my favorite paycheck eater, clothes shopping.”

Sara laughed before saying good-bye and hanging up. B’Elanna spun on her heels and jogged toward the shower. As she got dressed she reflected on how desperate she was for a friend and how it seemed like Sara might just be the solution to her loneliness.

It took a few minutes to find each other when they arrived. B’Elanna caught sight of Sara huddled in a corner with her back to the wall and realized that Sara was completely out of her element.

Sara caught sight of her and gave her a timid wave. “Hey.”

“Sara, it’s good to see you again,” there was a brief moment of awkwardness until they decided on a brief hug, “Look, if you’re not comfortable here…”

“Nah, its fine, it’s different, I’ll deal. The last time I was here, it was to solve a suspicious death in Dillards. An employee was accidently buried under several hundred boxes of bathroom towels. The towels absorbed the smell; he was there for a month.”

“They didn’t try to sell the towels after did they?”

“I sure as hell hope not.” Sara shuddered at the thought. “Most are in evidence anyway.”

“Come on, let’s go find somewhere to blow some cash.”

Sara laughed, hooked her arm around B’Elanna’s and said, “I have money to blow, but I don’t know how to shop. I’m still in stuff that I wore to collage or hand-me-downs from co-workers.”

“I’ve just discovered shopping, I’ll teach you.”  

“I’m a fast learner most of the time.”

“Great, let’s start over here.” Three hours and a huge amount of money later, Sara had a new wardrobe and B’Elanna had purchased a new outfit. “God, I’m hungry.”

Sara smiled at her, “Me too… um.”

“I have an idea,” B’Elanna offered “you can say no if you want to, but I thought we could go to Lake Mead for a picnic lunch.”

“Oh that sounds wonderful, there’s this little place in Henderson where you can pick up a pre-packed picnic basket. I also found a place while at a crime scene that’s way better than the public beaches.”

“Sounds great, although I’m a bit leery to go to a crime scene for a picnic.”

“It was years ago. Besides, Lanna, if I eliminated every place where I saw a dead body I’d have to lock myself up in a deep dark hole… wait, that wouldn’t work either,” Sara said comically.

“Well then, let’s go to an old crime scene for lunch.” B’Elanna winked.

Sara sobered and gave her a penetrating look, “You handle my life, my job, far better than most people.”

“I’ve seen some things in my life, I suppose.”

“You’re not some kind of serial killer are you?”

“Well…” she smirked as Sara tensed, “No, I spent some time working on a project in a war-zone when I was younger…” Which is exactly what keeping an engine running on the Val Jean during the resistance was right?

“Just how old are you? You keep saying ‘much younger’ and you don’t look that old.”

“I’m 28, it just seems like I was in some other time back then. Should we go?” Torres started to head to the main entrance.

“Where are you going?”

“To call a cab…”

“I’ve got a truck parked in the lot out back.”

B’Elanna hadn’t been in a privately driven vehicle since she’d been on earth; cab’s somehow seemed safer with their plexiglass window between her and the front seat. “Right, well then, lead the way Miss Sidle.”

Once they found the Denali and dumped dozen’s of bags in the back, they hopped in. Sara’s driving skills were far better than Tom’s. The odd thought popped into her head about how Sara would compare to Tom when flying Voyager. She brushed that away as impossible and focused on thinking of something to say. “So does this mean we left your vehicle at the bar last time?”

“No, no, I left it at home, I didn’t want to drink and drive.”

“Good plan, I can’t drive at all, so it’s never been a problem for me.”

“But you used a valid license when we got carded at one of those clubs?”

“So you noticed that huh? Yeah. I was flattered that they thought I was that young.”

Sara chose to ignore the comment, “If you can’t drive then how? … You suspended?”

“No, I never really learned how. I had someone try to teach me once, but well…” In her mind’s eye she saw Tom coaxing her into the driver’s side with a flourish and waxing eloquent about his Camaro’s handling.

“How’d you pass the road test?”

“Um… I… don’t really want to say...” Sara gave her a look that said she’d better tell her, and since the truth wasn’t going to fly, she made up a simple plausible story. “Ok fine, I slept with the testing guy.” A huge smile broke out on Sara’s face, “he gave it to me if I promised not to actually drive until someone taught me. Sara, I was a different person back then. I’m not like that now…” She stated defensively, wondering why she felt the needed to justify herself (especially since the story was literally a complete fabrication; although she had slept with her erstwhile instructor).

Now she burst out laughing “Don’t worry, I’m not judging you. Though technically, I should report you, but hey… “

“I know my limits and these things are dangerous. Besides, I wanted the license to get my pass port.”

“Why’ve you never learned?”

“Honestly, it just never seemed necessary until I ended up here.” That response couldn’t have been truer. She’d spent her life learning to fly star-ships and shuttle crafts. A car wasn’t a priority piece of education.

“I guess I could teach you… that is, if you want me too.”

“We’ll see. The last time I tried Tom’s hair was grey by the end… from stress and from airbag dust.” Not to mention he had to rebuild the front of his precious car. They hadn’t spoken for a week after that, B’Elanna had been embarrassed and Tom had been conducting repairs.

“Oh no, what happened?”

“Car’s don’t go through trees and breaks are inefficient at best… still want to teach me?” she said laughingly.

“I’ll rent a clunker.”

“You’ll rent a what?”

Sara gave her a strange look before clarifying, “An old beater?” B’Elanna shook her head, still not understanding the reference, “a very old vehicle that no one will care about if you crash; a clunker. Just don’t kill us and we should be good.”

“Easier said than done.” Torres responded nervously.

The rest of the drive was comfortably silent. Both women enjoying being with someone who had no expectations. They arrived at The Picnic Eatery and ordered a meal, along with a bottle of wine and headed out. Sara had a blanket in the back under her extra supplies, which came in handy.

They found a quiet — thankfully, body free — area and set up by the lake. Birds sang in the tree’s, a cool breeze blew off the lake, and the traffic noise faded behind the lapping waves. At first, Sara sat several feet away as they chatted, but by the time lunch was done and the wine a memory, her head rested on B’Elanna’s thigh.

Torres asked her a question and when Sara failed to respond, she glanced down at her companion, only to see that Sara was fast asleep. B’Elanna smiled, leaned her head back against the tree behind her, grabbed one of Sara’s forensics journals and relaxed. The heat and fresh air added to her contentment, her free hand ran through Sara’s hair.

The calm was interrupted by a cell phone. “Sidle” she mumbled while quickly checking her watch. “Gris I’m not on for another six hours… No I don’t want…. Ok fine, I’ll be there in an hour or so…. 93 Shadowfax, yeah in Henderson, got it. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Sara seemed to realize that she was still lying on B’Elanna’s lap and jumped up. Her flushed skin showed her embarrassment. “I’m sorry…”

“No, it’s ok, you fell asleep and I read your magazines. It’s been about three hours since the wine so you should be ok to drive right?”

“Three hours, I’m so sorry that I slept that long…”

“Honestly Sara, I was going to spend my day reading at home, this was much more relaxing. I mean look around! Did you have a good sleep?”

“You know, I think that was the best sleep I’ve had in weeks. I actually feel rested,” she said in wonder.

“Good. You have to go? Didn’t you just get off?”

“Yeah, there’s a quadruple homicide and its all hands on deck. Day’s has a bus crash up on Boulder highway, Swing is on a missing kid so…” Sara looked down at her rumpled cloths and sighed. “Looks like I’m spending a third day in this shit.”

Torres tried really hard to keep the patronizing tone out of her voice when she gently reminded Sara of their earlier activities. “You’ve got a whole work ready wardrobe in the truck, socks, shoes, and underwear included. Drive me to my place, you can shower and change, then you can head out.”

Sara gave her a look filled with gratitude. They packed up quickly mindful of the tight schedule. In the car, Sara confided in B’Elanna that she didn’t really know what to wear with what from the outfits they’d gotten that day and that she was worried about getting the new cloths dirty. B’Elanna just encouraged her to pay attention to the road and not worry about it. She had a plan.

Back at her condo, B’Elanna quickly riffled through the supplies and laid out an outfit. Then, she sorted them into two week’s worth of outfits; Sara didn’t have to think she just had to put it on. “There’s a change of clothes on the bed for you when you’re done. I’ll be in the living room.”

“Thanks, I shouldn’t be long.” She wasn’t lying; the speed she finished in almost seemed superhuman. “How does it look?” She stood uncomfortably in the living room doorway.

The deep purples, aqua, and pink of her shirt brightened her face considerably, the pants fit perfectly on her slim frame. “You look amazing… If things get messy, just take off the top and leave the tank on. Everything’s machine washable and drier friendly.”

“Thanks.” She glanced at her watch, “I really should get going.”

“Ok, um… I wanted to thank you and invite you to dinner next Thursday.”

“Dinners are never really good for me cause I work night shift, but we could do breakfast.”

B’Elanna smiled, “you call with the time and place, and I’ll be waiting.”

The call never came, instead three days later at 3:52 am; B’Elanna jerked awake, someone was knocking on her front door.


	4. Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara shows up in the middle of the night exhausted. B'Elanna helps her relax.
> 
> Please read and review :)

B’Elanna tossed on a robe, clicked on her mobile emitter and glanced through the peephole. Sara stood listlessly outside, hair messy, clothes rumpled; there were tears in her eyes. “Sara?” B’Elanna breathed as she ripped the door open. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t take it anymore and I didn’t know where else to go.”

“God, come in please.”

“I never called you…”

“I don’t mind. I’ve been following the case on TV, I knew you were busy.”

“I haven’t been off, not even to sleep.”

“It’s been three days! And you worked a triple the day before that!”

“I’ve been asked to take a few days off. I … I hit a suspect.” A single tear slipped down her cheek.

“Oh, Sara, please come inside.” Sara followed her unsteadily. Not only was she filthy, but the unmistakable smell of decomposing body clung to her. B’Elanna thrust away unpleasant memories of Bajoran corpses in Cardassian labour camps. “Here,” ushered Sara to the couch and handed her a water bottle. Torres noticed a tricorder sitting on the coffee table and snatched it up discretely. “You’re in desperate need of a bath. Sit and I’ll go run the water.” B’Elanna hurried into the bathroom dropped the plug and turned on the water.

She frantically scanned the room looking for a way to hide the obvious signs of the advanced technology scattered about. She’d been working all day at home and had gotten sloppy. She hid the incriminating evidence by tossing things in her closet and locking it up tight.

“Sara?” B’Elanna walked out to the living room and found her friends sound asleep. “Come on wake up, you can’t sleep in this.” Sara stirred, muttered something unintelligible. “Sara, I’ve got a Jacuzzi tub with jets in all the right places come on…”

This time Sara opened her eyes “Jacuzzi?”

Torres smiled “Yeah. I may be an environmentalist, but there are some things that I can’t do without. Up we get, the tub should be full.” Sara stumbled down the hall and into the master bath. “I’ll be checking on you to make sure you don’t fall asleep ok.”

“Ok.” She replied dully. “Do you have any lemons?”

“Lemons?”

“Yeah, decomp… sorry that’s gross, I’m repulsive. I should leave…”

“No you’re not. I’ll go grab some. You get in. Back in a sec.”

“Thanks…” Sara turned her back and started to undress. B’Elanna jogged through the spacious apartment to grab a sad looking, dried up lemon, and a bottle of lemon juice. It left her fridge empty other than a bottle of beer and some hot sauce. On her way back to the bathroom she did another scan of the apartment, snatching up anything with a Starfleet insignia.

Sara sat in the tub, her head back, eyes closed, and the jets on high. Torres respectfully kept her eyes averted as she put the fruit on the edge of the tub.

“You awake?” She asked quietly.

There was a long pause before she got a response. “I don’t think I’ve been awake for at least six hours.”

“Well, here’s the lemon, I had this too.” She gestured to the full bottle. “I figured it’s the same thing.”

“Thanks, I’m sorry I woke you.”

“You didn’t. Why’d you choose here?”

“Closer, I didn’t want to drive s’far.” Sara was starting to doze off again so B’Elanna reached out and tapped her shoulder gently.

“Hey, stay awake. You don’t want to drown.”

“Yer right… lemme wash I’ll be out in a few.” Torres stood and pulled the curtain closed then sat on the toilet. “God this feels good…”

“So, is it legal for them to make you work two triples in a row with less than ten hours between?”

“Hmmm, what? No, I mean yeah I guess… they did it so…”

“But then they toss you off the job when you make a mistake?”

“We’re all run ragged right now. I think everyone was sent packing when I was; Day’s finished the wreck and subbed us out. Swing found the kid, he was still breathing. I wish even half of mine ended or even started with a warm body.”

“Ahh, ok, you implied that it was just you that was sent home.”

“Everyone else got to take a few hours here and there. My boss kept calling me when I’d try to leave, in his defense he didn’t leave either.”

“You my dear need to learn to say no.”

“But Grissom…” Sara trailed off, the splashing stopped a few minutes later.

“How’s the cleaning going?”

Sara gasped and there was a larger splash, “damn… think I’m more tired than I thought…” Torres heard the cap on the juice open it appeared half-empty a few minutes later. The tangy scent of lemon replaced sickly sweet and heavy scent of decomposing human. Water drained from the tub.

“I’ll just wait outside, there’s a change of clothes on the counter. Towel’s on the bar beside it.”

“Thanks...”

Torres grabbed her filthy clothes and tossed them in the wash with a healthy dose of vinegar. Then she headed for the never used guest bedroom. When Sara finally emerged, she looked even worse than when she went in. Her dark sunken eyes and pale grey skin made her look like the walking dead.

“Just come right through here, I made up the guest bed. Sleep as long as you need.” Sara thanked her again as she fell into the bed. She didn’t even try to pull up covers so B’Elanna did it for her.

Twenty minutes later Sara’s phone started to ring. “hulow… sorry… Sidle” she said groggily, B’Elanna reentered the room prepared to take the phone away and give whoever it was a piece of her mind. Sure she’d pulled triple even quadruple shifts, but that was when everyone on the ship was about to die, these people were already dead. “Gris… I can’t, Ecklie… I know…” Torres caught Sara’s eyes and mouthed ‘say no’ to her friend.

Sara closed her eyes, almost fell asleep again, and then she jerked up, “Gil I can’t stay awake, I’ve pulled two triples in a row and you want me in by six A.M? No, if you keep pushing I’m going to quit instead of show up. Call Catherine in, she’s taken the most time off of anyone… I don’t care if she’s got a kid, if the killer walks because I’m too tired to do my job right then what’s the point. I’ll see you a week, I’m way over my monthly overtime.” Sara’s phone clicked shut and let it fall from her shaking hand. Silence reigned for a moment and then she burst into tears.

Torres didn’t hesitate in wrapping the exhausted woman in her arms. While she wept, B’Elanna reached out and turned off the phone to avoid any more unwanted calls. It didn’t take long for Sidle to fall asleep.    

Sara awoke with a start to strange sounds. Someone was inside; she felt a momentary shock of pure panic when she reached for her gun. It wasn’t on the bedside table… in fact there was no bedside table at all. She looked around frantically and realized she wasn’t even in her home. She was in a sparsely appointed room with little more than a bed and a dresser. Thinking back to the last thing she remembered, Sara had a dim memory of Brass grabbing her from behind and Ecklie yelling something at her.

She really hoped that she’d been driven to Nick’s place or something, but she’d been in her coworker’s guest bedrooms before and this wasn’t one of them. She poked her head out of the bedroom and wandered down the hall. It was so plain that it could have been a hotel. There were no pictures on the walls and very little in the way of decoration to clue her in as to where she’d ended up. She rounded a corner and came out into a spacious open concept great room with a dining room, living room and kitchen all neatly appointed. A nagging hint of memory fluttered in the back of her mind but her mental wheels weren’t turning yet. Hundreds of knickknacks lined shelving units along one wall all dated with their purchase locations neatly written on a label. Another wall was covered floor to ceiling with books. Something was covered with a sheet in the far corner. Not the right shape for a body, her mind supplied.

Scanning the room for the source of the noise brought her to the kitchen. She immediately relaxed when she saw Torres on the floor under her sink, tools spread about, and the woman was cursing softly under her breath in some language Sara didn’t recognize. Sara tried to make some noise, Torres didn’t notice. So she said “Hey…” as quietly as she could and still be heard.

“Shit!” Torres jumped and smacked her head on the underside of the counter.

“Sorry there was no nice way to do that.”

“You’re up! Good, I was starting to worry.” Sara gave her one of those eyebrow-raised glances that tended to get people talking. B’Elanna rubbed her head and stood up. “It’s been over forty hours since you got here.”

“What? Oh no… work.”

“You told them you were taking a week off.”

“Yeah, but still…” Sara started to head back to the bedroom to grab her phone when Torres stopped her.

“They made you work two triples in a row Sara. What do you even call that? A sextuple? Is that legal? No it isn’t, I checked.” Sara smirked in response to B’Elanna’s frustration. “Then they tried to get you back in three hours later. Plus, you apparently hit a suspect.”

“Oh god I was hoping that was a dream. I told Grissom I was taking a week?”

“Yeah, I guess you called him Gil and Gris anyway. He didn’t seem happy, but you told him that someone named Ecklie threw you out.”

“Ok, fine… so two days huh? I’ve done longer but not by much.”

“I was ready to let you sleep till next week if you needed it.”

Sara cocked her head to the side “Why do you care so much?”

“Because I happen to like you I guess.”

“Huh.” It’s not as if this hadn’t happened before, they were the second busiest lab in the country, and long workweeks were inevitable. “It’s ok, I can handle it, it’s happened before.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“I do it to myself really,” Sara waved her hand dismissively, “I’m a confessed workaholic.”

“You put everyone’s lives at risk like this. I always cap it at quadruples, after that nothing is done right and people get hurt.”

“Since I don’t actually remember getting here or hitting a suspect I imagine that’s a good policy…” Sara conceded. “How did I get here anyway?”

“You drove here and you don’t even remember? Now I’m even angrier.”

“Look, I barely even know you, what gives you the right to dictate what I do?”

That brought B’Elanna to an abrupt halt. Sara was right, but she couldn’t help it, she was still pissed. “Look, I’m not angry with you. I’m angry with them. You need this week.”

Sara’s kneejerk defensiveness melted quickly. “I know. I don’t even feel like I slept.” They both fell silent; Sara kept glancing at the tools spread all over the floor. Finally, curiosity won out. “What’re you doing down there anyway?”

“Oh, I’m trying to find a way to reuse water in the home a few times before it goes to a plant. So far it’s not working. I was trying to do it at the drains but it clogged so fast it’s basically useless. I think it has to be in a separate tank.”

Sara sat down and watched as Torres started to clean up her mess. “Got anything to eat around here?”

Torres laughed “nope, I was about to suggest we go to the diner down the street. I’m worse at cooking than I am at driving.”

“I am useless in a kitchen too.”

B’Elanna finished cleaning up and ran to change. At some point the clothes which were still in bags in the Denali had been brought in, washed, and hung. So all Sara had to do was shower and slip into a sundress and strappy sandals. She looked in the full-length mirror in the bathroom and giggled.

“Lanna, I look like a girl.” She hollered.

“And this surprises you?”

“I’m just not use to looking good that’s all.”

“Sara with a body like that you’d look good in a paper bag.”

“Oh shush. I look like a pre-pubescent boy.”

“Do not!”

“Do too.”

“Let’s go eat, I’m starved.” B’Elanna said. Sara pulled the door open to find B’Elanna right outside the door. Sara smirked at the dumbfounded look on her companions face. “You defiantly do _not_ look like a boy.” Sara felt pretty for first time in months and it felt good. Grissom didn’t even notice her new outfits, let alone get breathless when she walked into the room.

“You coming?” She asked teasingly over her shoulder. Torres took herself in hand and followed.

They ate a quiet meal together, caught an early afternoon movie (that Sara mostly slept through), then returned to the condo. For some reason the whole day felt like a date.

It wasn’t until their second movie of the day began to roll credits that Sara realized she hadn’t called the office yet. The thought of calling had her heart racing uncontrollably, as near to a panic attach as she’d been since she was a child. That overwhelming feeling of dread decided her, instead of doing the right thing; she chose to do the healthy thing and went to bed early.

The next morning Sara woke feeling refreshed. It’d been months since she felt this rested and she loved it. Her host was nowhere in sight and her CSI training kicked in. She really knew nothing about the woman that she’d been hanging out with and it was time to find out. The first, most glaring thing was no family pictures what so ever, no baby pictures, no siblings, and no parents. Next was the collection of stuff, it had no pattern; it ranged from tourist junk to rock and soil samples, there was even an iPod still in the case. There were a few native paintings and artifacts along with some rather expensive looking collector’s items. Her movie collection was rather small, but there were hundreds of DVDs covering everything from sitcoms to procedural drama’s, to Sci-Fi television shows.

Sara had little interest in these. Instead, her eyes were drawn to the books. Books lined the far wall, stacked floor to ceiling almost as if B’Elanna were trying to create a wallpaper decorating effect. Sara loved it. Every genre was well represented. The most surprising and potentially telling; were the cultural and behavioural reference books. She noted a book called “Vegan & Vegetarian: Answers to Your Frequently Asked Questions” tucked into one of the piles and smiled.

Sara moved her exploration into the one bedroom that she knew wasn’t in use and gasped, it was filled with clothing of all different types. B’Elanna, she realized was a hoarder, neat and organized, but a hoarder none the less. She shut the door quickly, fearing that she’d somehow found her way into a clothing store.

The master bedroom was different, simply a locked case at the foot of the bed and a locked closet. There were no knickknacks here, only technical manuals, spare parts, and hand written sheets of paper. She picked one of the sheets up and couldn’t make sense of the symbols on the page. She’d never seen writing like that before it was almost a cross between Chinese lettering and Arabic script. Under the bed were shoeboxes and other assorted (locked) cases.

She the temptation had finally gotten too much, Sara returned to the living room and the sheet-covered item that had been attracting her like a moth to a flame since she first noticed it. Her hand reached out and just as she was about to pull it off B’Elanna’s voice stopped her “Please don’t.” Sara yelped and jumped back. “That’s classified tech and I’d get in trouble if you saw it.” Sara looked from the sheet to Torres. “It’s just something I’m working on with the military and they can get touchy. I had to sign a bunch of confidentiality forms and everything.”

“Ok, I won’t look; sorry I was snooping I can’t help it.”

“I know. It’s your job. So, what do you think? Am I a serial killer?”

“I’m confused by that stuff,” she pointed to the junk on shelves, “and you don’t seem to stick to any genres on either TV or books. You don’t have any family photos and you’re a shopaholic. I didn’t see any explosives or weapons around, but they could be in the locked cabinet in your room.”

B’Elanna laughed, “So what’s my diagnosis then officer?”

“Crazy… but not a killer.” Sara winked to show she was joking.

B’Elanna covered up the flash of guilt, she was a killer. The resistance had been a good cause but she’d still killed. But then maybe it was different in a war. “I already knew I was crazy. I lost the photos in a fire before I moved. I hear the first step to recovery is admitting to the problem, I am addicted to shopping and I hope I never have to move because it’ll take a month to get all this crap out of here.” They both had a good laugh. “Sara, I got this,” she held up The Easy-To-Use Beginner's First Cook Book, “it claims to be able to teach anyone to do anything in the kitchen and I picked up some groceries. Want to find out if two very smart people can burn a house down boiling water?”

“Sounds like an experiment I can get my hands into. Just as long as there’s no meat.”

“I chose two vegetarian items and one meat one. I can’t live without meat sorry.” B’Elanna knew this was a very real concern. Klingon’s can’t live without meat, the redder the better; it was literally a genetic thing.

“It’s ok. I just can’t handle it when it’s raw.”

“Why don’t you eat meat? It seems strange to me. I get sick without it.”     

“Well other than it being healthier over all, it’s a personal choice. I was working with Grissom on a case and we did an experiment. We wrapped a pig up in a blanket and sat with it outside until blowflies hatched in it. I haven’t been able to eat meat since I saw the maggots and smelled the rot.”

“Interesting job you got there. Is there anything that could make it better? Any type of meat you can be more comfortable around?”

“I actually like fish. I’m not a vegan so I can eat cheese, eggs and milk. I don’t really mind when other people eat meat, I’d just prefer to never be in a room when pork is being prepared and eaten. The cooking smells too much like human flesh.”

B’Elanna had to bite back her thought of ‘I know, I remember.’ Instead she explained, “I like all types of meat, but I do like cow, bison, and mutton. I could live without pig, well except for bacon, I love bacon.”

“You and everyone else. At least bacon has a distinctive, none human smell when cooking.”

“Shall we see if we can do this?” They managed to do fairly well. Sara snapped a picture on Torres’ cell phone of B’Elanna covered head to toe with flour. The meal tasted half-decent so they agreed to try something else the next day.

The rest of the day was spent reading random books out of the pile. B’Elanna hadn’t checked the read out for contact with Voyager and Sara hadn’t turned on her phone in four days.

They chose to go out to Lake Mead the next day. They played frisbee, swam, and even caught frogs (something that didn’t exist on Kessik IV). This was the first time in B’Elanna life where she wasn’t worried about fitting in or being judged. Sara felt herself healing a wound in her soul that she didn’t even know she had. Their worlds had shrunk to contain only each other.

On the fifth day, Sara and B’Elanna decided to go for a hike in the desert. The drove out and followed a path into the middle nowhere. This was where reality reminded them of its existence.

They’d gone about four miles when something caught Sara’s attention. She cursed and headed in that direction. There on the ground, obvious gunshot wounds to the chest and forehead lay a male vic. Torres hung back to avoid the overpowering stench. She was having trouble not flashing back to the resistance. It had been a long time since she’d seen a body and she wished it had been longer. Her Klingon side was laughing at her weakness. 

“As much as I wish I didn’t, I have to call this in. Could you go stand over there?” Sara gestured to a pile of scrub growing about twenty feet up wind of the scene. She grabbed her long forgotten cell out of her pocket and cringed when she saw that it was still turned off. When the phone had finally booted up she wasn’t surprised to see 57 missed calls. Ignoring those, she called Brass.

“Hi Brass, its Sidle.”

“Sara? Are you ok? We’ve been looking everywhere for you. I was one day away from putting out a B.O.L.O”

“Yeah, sorry, I didn’t realize my phone was off. I needed time so I took it and stayed with a friend. Look, I’m out in Summerland South near Mount Charleston and we found a DB, two GSW’s, looks like a hit. I need a team out here.”

“You’re sure you’re all right?”

“Yeah, I’m ok. I’m sorry I didn’t call.”

“We’ll talk about it later. I’ll be there soon. Don’t move.”

“I won’t. I’m assuming I don’t have a job anymore so we’re nothing more than the ones who found the body. I’m not going to touch it.”  

“Good, don’t. We’ll be there ASAP.” Sara snapped the phone shut and tried to ignore the growing sense of dread in her stomach. She sat beside Torres and leaned her head on the other women’s shoulder.

“Well, I’m pretty sure I’m fired.”

“You don’t know that.”

“They’ve been looking for me.”

“We watched the news every night. There were no missing person’s reports.”

“True… but…”

“So what does that look like to you?” Torres pointed at the body.

“Well, it’s not too fresh but not too old, there’s predation, and insect activity. Two GSWs, in the desert, so probably gang or mob related. There are two sets of footprints leading up to the body and only one leading away, lots of blood pooling and spatter around the victim, so I’d guess this is the primary. The gun is sitting on his chest so that’ll be a dead end. I’d say professional hit, within the last 24 hours. I just hope that whoever it was doesn’t come back and find us here. I don’t have my gun.”

B’Elanna was impressed; all she got was that there was a dead body. It never occurred to her to look for prints or animal activity. Dead, to Torres, was dead, end of story. “You need to teach me this stuff.”

“Why?”

“because I don’t know it and I need to learn it.”

“So mental hoarding in addition to physical hoarding huh? God it’s a good think you’re organized.” Sara chuckled at B’Elanna’s incredulous expression.

They sat there for some time, B’Elanna’s arms gently wrapped around Sara’s body. Sara, enjoying the feel, lost her prospective for a moment and turned her head to kiss B’Elanna’s cheek. “Thanks for waiting with me.”

“No problem, love.” Torres whispered a giddy feeling fluttered in her stomachs.

Sara smiled at her. “I’m also glad you’ll be here when I get fired. Can I lean on you while it happens?”

“Of course.” B’Elanna reassured her. Then, much to the pleasure of her Klingon side, Torres leaned forward intending to capture a kiss from those pouty lips. They were mire millimeters from each other when they heard a shout from nearby. They jumped apart immediately, trying to catch their breath.

“I got them!” Nick Stokes yelled back to Brass. The man jogged up and pulled Sara into a quick one-armed hug. “Damn it Sara we were so worried, are you ok?”

“Nick I’m fine… There’s the body. B’Elanna and I were hiking when we smelled decomp and came to investigate. She stayed back here; I walked in to check it out then walked back in my prints.”

Brass came puffing up and pulled Sara into a bear hug, then he smacked the back of her head. “If you ever disappear like that again, I will be the one to kill you.”

“Look, it was irresponsible I know but…”

B’Elanna chose to interrupt before Sara minimized how bad the situation was. “She slept for 43 hours after she showed up at my place, then another 18 after that. I’m the one who turned off the phone and kept her distracted so she didn’t go back in until she looked less like a zombie and more like a human. Torres, B’Elanna Torres, I’m a friend of Sara’s.”

She stuck her hand out for the older man to shake. He looked her up and down suspiciously before taking her hand. “Detective Brass. Never turn off a Law Enforcement officer’s cell.”

“Her boss called her at 4:30 a.m. to get her to come back on shift after working six back to back shifts with no breaks, I was protecting her.”

“Good answer, I’ve told the guy off for overworking you Sara, but you should have called.”

“Shouldn’t you be working a scene?” Sara asked to end the uncomfortable conversation that was taking place over her head. There was no need to push further because Greg, Catherine, Warrick, and Grissom came up the path. Sara pulled back in the face of their concern and anger. She even took a few steps away from B’Elanna, wrapping her arms around herself.

They all started talking at once, Gil sounded disappointed, Warrick worried, and Catherine annoyed. Greg was conspicuously silent.

“Will you all shut up?” B’Elanna roared (a daring thing from what she’d learned about law enforcement in this century) bringing everyone to a standstill. “She’s been at my place recovering. She also has another two days off before her week is up so do what you have to do and let us get on with our day.” 

Everyone looked from Torres to Sara, expecting Sara to burst out in anger. No one spoke for her. Instead, she smiled a soft, satisfied smile and took a step back toward her. “I agree. That body isn’t getting any fresher and we have plans tonight.” After a moment of shock, they scattered.

“Alright Sara, walk through it for me.” Catherine said after looking from one woman to the other. Sara told them how she found the body and where they waited. They took shoe prints and statements from both women while the other CSI’s worked the scene. Torres was grateful that they didn’t ask for fingerprints or DNA, which would have been a mess she didn’t want to clean up.

They were about to leave when Gil finally got up the courage to come up and speak to her. “Sara… I’m disappointed in you.”

Sara’s outward calm snapped. Her anger finally broke free. “That’s not fair and you know it. I can’t work like this anymore. You string me on personally and use it to your advantage professionally. You and I, we’re done, if I still have a job I don’t mind working for you as long as you treat me as well as you treat them.” She gestured over to the working team. “I’ll walk off the job the next time you try to keep me for over a hundred hours straight.”

His face dropped, he had no idea that she’d worked that long, he’d just wanted her around. Now she was ending things with him? “but Sara…”

“No, no buts Gil I’m done. If you can’t work with me I’ll transfer to days or another lab.” Sara grabbed B’Elanna’s hand and dragged her away, down the trail and out of sight.

“I didn’t know you were dating your boss.” B’Elanna said. Annoyed that Sara hadn’t told her.

“I have off and on for a few years, when he is willing to give me the time of day.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”          

“Why you jealous?”

“No… Yes… I mean… damn it” B’Elanna was horrified to feel the blush spread up her face.

Sara smirked a bit before grimacing again, “I’m embarrassed and more than a bit ashamed of it. I think I liked him _because_ he treated me bad.”

“That’s disturbing and a bit sad. Sara…” Torres pulled her best friend (OK, so only friend) to a stop and looked around to make sure that no one was in sight. “You are worth so much more than that.”

“I…” B’Elanna didn’t let her say anymore, she leaned in and gave her a quick kiss.

“You are. No arguments.” Sara looked into her eyes for a moment and then nodded. B’Elanna put her arm around Sara and got her moving again.

They’d only gone a few more feet when they heard running steps behind them. Greg came up and pushed between them, draping an arm over each of them. “So I wasn’t really worried. I knew where you were. I followed you the night you left to make sure you got home ok. I kept your secret so you could get time off.” He looked at B’Elanna, “Are you treating my girl right?”

“Of course I am.” Torres was having a hard time not smiling; this kid was so full of energy. Seeing Sara lean into his embrace let her know that he was a good guy.

“Good, cause if you don’t I know how to dispose of a body so no one will find it.”

“Greg!” Sara punched him in the arm, a small smile on her lips.

“I won’t hurt her.” B’Elanna’s gut twisted guiltily. She would eventually hurt her because B’Elanna’s entire life here was a lie. Hell, she wasn’t even human!

“Good.”

“Greg, I think you’re making assumptions here…”

“Am I? You’re upset, can barely walk cause you’re so tired and instead of coming to my place or Nick’s place, or hell Grissom’s place, you drive — we have to discuss that by the way —  you drive to some woman’s house and spend a week there.”

“I just went to the closest person’s house; I barely even remember leaving the office.”

“Riiight, I’d believe that if my apartment wasn’t ten miles closer and you didn’t jump apart like someone hit you with a cattle prod every time someone comes along. Grissom doesn’t deserve you Sara. So you’ve got a choice; it’s either yours truly or her. But I’m a realist and I know I’ve lost you once again.”

“Greg, you’ve never had me.”

“Hah, so I’m right. Right? You two? I always had you pegged for gay.”

“Well I wish you would have told me. Hey, aren’t you supposed to be working?”

“Nope, I took the weekend off. I just came to see you. We should hurry cause Catherine isn’t far behind.” Greg changed his position so that he hooked Sara’s left arm, B’Elanna put her arm around Sara’s shoulder.

Sara sighed and smiled as they settled into the Denali, “I didn’t get fired.”

“Do you think they would have told you right then?”

“Catherine would have. She and I don’t get along very well.” The both jumped when Catherine knocked on the hood. Sara fumbled for the button and lowered the window. “What’s up?”

“I just wanted to say thanks.”

“For what?”

“Finally handing Grissom his ass on a plate. I put in a good word for you with Ecklie. He knows Grissom wouldn’t let you off and he’s letting you keep your job. Maybe, now that you’re out of that disaster of a relationship we can be friends again?”

“How did you?”

“Know? Sara, it’s my job to keep Gil in line.” Sara laughed, “I think Brass and I are the only ones who knew.”

“Greg does, which means everyone does. I may ask to transfer to swing, would I be welcome?”

“You bet. Just don’t question my sexuality again and we’ll be fine.” Sara blushed with embarrassment. “Besides if you come over to the dark side, I’d start clearing more cases than Grissom and maybe get his job. I’ll let you get to your plans, have a good time and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Sara rolled up the window and started the engine, “you know she use to be a stripper, so that leaves us a lot of leeway.” Tension died away as they drove toward home to change for _Cirque du Soleil._  


	5. Driving Lessons and Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> B'Elanna and Sara try to figure out how to relationship, not an easy prospect for an alien from the future and a seriously damaged CSI.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where I start taking some liberties with Torres's body. I feel that there is no way that a Klingon's external physiology would be identical to humans with the exception of the forehead. There would be tiny (and not so tiny) differences in her anatomy that would strike a CSI as fundamentally different from everyone she's ever encountered. 
> 
> I also believe that Torres is rightfully afraid to reveal these things. I also feel that she'd be worried about relying on the mobile emitter too much cause she'll have to save the power-cell so she has to let some stuff go. 
> 
> We get into more of her differences in the chapter 6.
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The last two days of Sara’s enforced vacation trickled by, mostly in a haze of relaxation and good company. However, the reminder of Sara’s job had put a dampener on the progression of anything more serious. Both women were reluctant to get more physically involved being that they struggled with inner demons with years of scar tissue built on top of them.  

Sara was lost in her psychological trauma, it had been a long time since she’d actually cared about the person she was seeing. She genuinely wanted this relationship to work and that made her scared, what if she ended up like her mother? Worse, what if she ended up like her father and B’Elanna couldn’t defend herself? What if B’Elanna was repulsed by her family’s violent history?

B’Elanna’s resistance was caused by fear of a more physiological nature, and frankly justified. That first kiss had been nearly magical for her, she wanted nothing more than to initiate a mating bond with Sara, and that was the problem. Sara had no idea what B’Elanna was or what to expect when taking a Klingon mate. Aside from the inherent aggression involved, there were fundamental differences between her and other humans. Actual physiological differences in her external sex characteristics and those were very hard to ignore. She’d have to find a way to explain them or she could end up in some government laboratory and all that would be left of her was Petri dishes and sample jars when Voyager came to get her. Thinking about that reminded her to check the readouts. Seven days and not even a blip to show anyone had found her, for the first time since she arrived on earth she was relieved.

The couple said goodbye on Sara’s first day back with a mixture of relief and sadness. Unsure of how to move things further, yet unwilling to discuss their problems so they could move forward.

The second the door closed behind Sara, B’Elanna went to work packing up her technology to bring to the office so Sara wouldn’t be tempted to snoop. B’Elanna didn’t want to be so paranoid to leave her alone in the house. Unfortunately, the office was no more secure than her home. Despite the do not enter sign on the door and the extra locks, the cleaning staff had violated the sanctity of her lab yet again. This meant extra time rigging a cloaking field around her twenty-fourth century technology but a better solution was needed.

Therefore, she set about looking for a secondary work-space off company property. Most of the other researchers had at least one other shop so that they could keep classified research protected. NCES didn’t mind as long as the agency got the patents on new earth friendly designs. Online, she found a place advertising independent research laboratories with maximum security and state of the art facilities. The place was expensive, but she could afford it (if she stopped shopping so much). A quick call set up a tour of the facilities.

From the outside, the place looked like Fort Knox. High fencing, brick barriers, monitored parking lots, and enough security guards to satisfy a war vet like Torres. The front desk clerk offered her a seat when she arrived.

“Good afternoon, my name is Matt Belleview. I’m in charge of this laboratory.”

“Hello Mr. Belleview. My name is B’Elanna Torres, a pleasure to meet you.”

“Please call me Matt. So, let me show you around and we’ll decide which section your particular brand of research belongs in.” He began the tour by demonstrating the security both internal and external. Then he moved on to explain that researchers who worked on combustible materials had bunkers outside. Those who worked with the theoretical got the top floor of the building. “That’s because chalkboards rarely blow up but noxious fumes burn eyes and explosions will damage the flooring.” He explained jokingly. “If you’re working with powerful chemicals let us know and we will put in equipment to contain spills. We have a very strict no biological or contagion research policy so if you want to work on the plague you have to take it to another facility. What is your area of expertise?”

“I don’t really have one, I work at NCES because they were hiring when I came to Vegas but my research interests vary widely. I’ve wanted to focus more on computers and entertainment but I’ll probably be working on some of my less messy environmental stuff here.”

“Great, it sounds like you’ll fit in on the main floor just fine. We have a massive power supply to accommodate supercomputers and the like so you’ll never want for processing speed.”

“I doubt that.” Torres said with a laugh. He laughed politely with her.

“Of course, we can never have enough speed can we?”

“Never. Now about lab security, who has access?”

“No one does except you and in some case’s me. We’ll even go to bat for you against the authorities. Each lab has an iris and finger print scanner, voice, and typed pass codes all programmed by you in private and all that is worthless without the key. We have created the redundant programs to protect our patrons. If there’s a power outage, the doors seal and there are several keys required to get in or out of the rooms. You are to keep a set inside and a set in a safe location outside the building.”

“What if there’s an accident and a researcher is injured?”

“You will be given a safe word that you must shout if there is a problem. The word will open a majority of the security locks leaving only the ones that we have copies of so paramedics can come in. If you can’t speak, there’s a panic button or you can text my emergency number. If you are in the room for more than two days without coming out an alarm will sound requesting you give a series of commands to let us know that you are in fact alive and OK. If you don’t respond that gives me permission to open the door to check on you.”  

“Sounds reasonable.”

“We had an old fart of a mathematician die on us last year. Natural causes, but he was up there for a week when one of the other researchers saw the missing persons report on the news. We fixed the problem by encouraging everyone to come out of his or her rooms for a few hours every other day. That is why our facility has a fully stocked kitchen, a café, an exercise room, a swimming pool, chess room, and a bar available free of charge to all our renters.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“If you’ve been working for too long and are too tired to drive we have several basic rooms to rent for the night as well. We don’t encourage living here, but if you need to stay a night or two that’s fine. I stayed over when my building was being renovated.”

“Good. I’d like to see where I’d be working.” Mat and B’Elanna headed past the pool and bar, back through the main lobby and into a long hallway. About ten doors down, they stopped and entered a lab. The room was as sparse as could be with little more than a fume hood and a large table. The rest was bare concrete. The windows were thick, darkly tinted, and barred. An air filtration system hummed quietly proving that the temperature was regulated. There was about five hundred square feet of open floor space, more than enough for Torres’ needs.

“I know it doesn’t look like much right now but when a new tenant comes in we like to let them design the space. You provide a list of items; we bring in state of the art stuff and set it up. You could be in within the week.”

“Where do I sign?” They left the room and headed back to the main office. Mat reminded her that if she failed to meet the rent standards everything left in the office became the property of the business to be sold off to make up for back payments. This gave her pause for a moment but knowing that she had a huge bonus sitting in her account waiting to be spent let her feel comfortable with the yearlong lease and the hefty down payment. She also drained her account (payday was only a few days away) to pay ahead for the first 10 months.

Once the basics were taken care of and her room designed, she headed back to her other work to get some things done there. At about two a.m. her thoughts drifted from filtering exhaust emissions to Sara, wondering how her day went.                    

The weeks went by with Sara shifting to swing, B’Elanna adjusting to her new space, and both of them learning to talk to someone without being defensive. There were some rocky moments, when B’Elanna’s temper leaked out or Sara would drink a bit too much, but they were quickly smoothed over. 

One day in early January, Sara arrived at B’Elanna’s home with a smile on her face and keys in her hand. Torres gave her a quick kiss. Then she noticed the mischief twinkling in her eyes. “What?” she asked.

“I got you something.” Sara excitedly pulled her girlfriend out to the parking lot and pointed at a rusty car.

“Um… It’s uh lovely. Thanks”

“Ha, I didn’t get it for looks I got it because I’m expecting you to scratch it up a bit. I found an abandoned runway and got permission teach you to drive there.”

“Really? How many trees are there?”

“It’s a runway.” She mocked. “There are miles of open unused track out there. Nothing to hit and lots of space to get out of control.” B’Elanna found herself pushed into the passenger seat before she could lose her nerve.

Sometime later, they pulled into the old airport where, true to her word, there wasn’t a single tree or building in evidence, just miles of pavement in the middle of the desert. Torres was still worried, “Sara I bet I could build one of these things from scratch if you gave me enough time but…”

“Relax. I’ve been thinking about this. Did the guy who taught you before explain the science of it? Or did he just put you behind the wheel and say drive.”

“Behind the wheel. He said it was an art and that I had to feel it. Why?”

“That’s what I thought. OK, here’s what we’re going to do.” She reached into the back of the car and pulled out some diagrams. “You’re a scientific minded person so teaching you the ‘art’ of driving won’t work. So let’s discuss physics for a while…” an hour later, some of the process was clearer to her.

“You know love, I’m not stupid, but seriously this should be so much easier… I can handle a st…. I can… I should be able to do this.” Sara gave her an odd look and B’Elanna’s head started searching for answers to the inevitable questions to fallow.

“You can handle a what?”

“Um… A ship I can handle that so why can’t I understand the road and a basic primitive automobile? Sorry I’m frustrated and nervous. The safety features are just not that great and I’m worried I’ll hurt you.”

Sara smiled at her “Firstly, the physics of sailing are completely different from driving a car and if the safeties are so primitive why don’t you design us a teleporter or a flying car to get us where we want to go.” This comment caught B’Elanna off guard, had Sara found some of her twenty-fourth century technology? Had she noticed that Torres had been attempting to build a transporter to take her back to her century?

“Those things are impossible to make with the current technological abilities of this planet.” B’Elanna went for a joke to make the bluster seem less thin. “Now if you want a jet pack…”

“Ha, now the safety systems on jet packs are far worse than in a car. Baby you’ll get it. I think we’ve covered the basics and you understand why the car works so…” Sara tossed over the keys.

B’Elanna sat in the driver’s seat and put the key in the ignition, her palms were sweaty, she felt like she was about to go orbital-skydiving without safeties. Only this time she was defiantly feeling something. If she ended up in a hospital…

Deciding to stop the catastrophic thinking, Torres squared her shoulders and screwed up her courage. Sara’s encouraging nod helped; after all, it’s not as if she could say no to the woman.

“Good, now the most important part of driving is that the driver does not pass out from hyperventilation.” Sara laughed as B’Elanna calmed her breathing as ordered. “I guess I understand why they make sixteen year old's learn to drive, they have no sense of self-preservation. Adults think too much. Put your foot on the break and put the car in drive.”

“I can do this…” Slowly she put her foot on the left pedal as directed and eased the car’s gearshift accordingly.

“Good now you’re going to take your foot off the break slowly and just let the car ride forward. Get a feel for the movement at a very low speed. Practice steering like we talked about without hitting any of the pedals.” The car began to roll forward slowly and B’Elanna immediately put the break back on, she felt like a coward. Sara reached her hand out to brace herself on the dash as her hair flew forward to cover her face for a second. “Good start. Now do it again.”

Just as dusk was beginning to fall Sara called an end to the exercise. They had managed to get her up to twenty miles an hour once, even if they did skid out. Sara had plans to get her more books on the subject; B’Elanna had plans to scan the stupid car to find a way to make it drive its self.

Several days later B’Elanna was driving around the airstrip confidently and learning the rules of the road. Both Greg and Nick had been out to provide obstacles for her to learn on, she figured she’d be able to drive the actual roads in a week or two. With such patient tutoring she hadn’t even hit anything.

A few weeks later she had her first road test booked with Sara but she found herself stood up. Not that that was odd with the women’s job. But, Sara hadn’t even called. A day passed and then two on the third day Torres called Sara’s cell and got voicemail. Sara didn’t contact her until the fourth day, when B’Elanna was reading quietly at six in the evening.

Her door slammed open, sending Torres into a startled crouch. Sara slammed the door shut and walked straight into B’Elanna’s arms. “I hate humans, they all suck.” Sara whispered just before bursting into tears. B’Elanna just sat her down on the couch and held her until the tears stopped.

“I want to go out and get drunk.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Why don’t we go catch dinner and a movie?”

Sara hit her chest, hard, and glared through teary eyes. “I’m not an alcoholic.”

B’Elanna just ignored the outburst. “I know that. But we decided not to drink after bad shifts. Do you want to talk about it?”

“There’s this kid, a real genius, like full blown true blue genius, she’s in high school and only twelve. Well her brother killed someone and got off because the girl messed with evidence and provided the court with reasonable doubt. I lost a case to a twelve year old because she’s smarter than me. I know what happened, but her story matched up with the evidence just as well. How could a fucking twelve year old be smarter than our entire lab?”

“Are you more upset because the murderer went free or because she beat you?”

“Both. I could have turned out like her you know, a few worse choices a few less... They have perfect parents and all the privilege in the world, but the brother’s a murderer and the sister is a conniving bitch and they aren’t even out of high school yet.”

 “OK, drinkings out of the question and movies don’t seem to be your thing tonight what do you want to do?”       

“Can we just stay here and ignore life.”

B’Elanna leaned down and kissed Sara’s forehead. Her hair smelled like shampoo, car engine grease, and dirt. “OK.” She whispered. Reaching out blindly, Torres pulled a book out of the pile stacked on the coffee table. She handed it to Sara then picked up the book she’d been reading before being interrupted.

“Sustainable Engineering: Concepts, Design, and Case Studies” Sara read off the title “not usually my choice for avoiding the world but…”

“Hey I could grab you Harry Potter if you prefer.”

“Nah at least this book doesn’t deal with kids doing things they shouldn’t.”

“True enough, you might even learn something new.”

“What are you reading?”

“Geek stuff.” B’Elanna hid the title of the book. Sara quickly grabbed it out of her hand and read

 “Entering Tenebrea. How is this geek stuff?”

“Sci-fi. It holds a special place in my heart, I don’t particularly like what the author sees as our future and I don’t think it’s very accurate but hey, its suppose to be fiction.” 

Sara laughed, “Well it could be worse…”

“How so?”

“You could be Star Wars books or something. Now shut up I’m trying to learn something.”

“Ok fine, I’m trying to let my brain leak out my ears so you shut up and let me not concentrate.”   

They didn’t move for hours. “Oh my god.” Sara said, stretching her back with a series of wet sounding pops. “Is it really 1 a.m.?” B’Elanna looked up in shock, she was almost done the novel, and Sara had made some serious inroads into her textbook. “I’m glad I don’t work till the afternoon. How about you?”

“I have been switching my schedule over to swing hours for the last month so I work when you do. It is nice to be an eccentric inventor sometimes; they let me follow my own process.”

Sara stiffened, suspicious. “Why did you do that?”

“I wanted to be on your schedule so we can maximize our time. Although, if you keep pulling triples Miss Workaholic I’m going to have to start matching you and then I’ll be grumpy.”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t want that.”

“No you wouldn’t. We should get some sleep though. As per normal I have the guest bedroom set up as your private haven from work.”

“Actually, and you can say no if you want, I… uh… I haven’t been sleeping well and I was thinking, that um… maybe we, or you could, or I suppose I could…”

“Sara spit it out.”

“Could I stay with you tonight?”

B’Elanna was speechless, even though they’d been dating for nearly six months they’d never crossed that line. There were things about her body that she was not prepared to let her see yet. Scars were the lease worrisome, the over developed musculature, the sub-dermal plating in her back, redundant hearts all of it sets her apart from other humans. It may be slight, not very noticeable but she hadn’t been able to come up with an explanation for any of it yet. “Um…”

“No it’s fine; forget I asked. I should go…”

“No! That’s not why I’m hesitating. I’m just surprised that’s all. What are you asking for here?”

“Just to sleep, maybe cuddle a bit. I’m exhausted and when I’m near you I don’t dream as much.”

Torres was relieved. “Sara before you, I never pegged myself as a cuddler but now, I can’t think of anything more pleasurable.”

Sara absorbed this for a while, and then she took a deep breath and asked a difficult question, “Lanna do you like me?”

“Like you how?”

“I mean physically? Do you have a problem with being gay or … well, we’ve been together for nearly half a year and we’re moving slower than glacial. Do you like me?”

“Oh Sara, you have no idea how attractive I find you. I just, there are some um, abnormalities about my body that I don’t really like to show. I guess I’m a bit embarrassed and I don’t want to scare you off.”

“I don’t think that’s possible, I’m too invested at this point. I have scars too you know.”

“Mine go a bit farther than scars. I’d like to think about this for a while; tonight let’s just go get some sleep.” Sara looked concerned but agreed. B’Elanna and Sara lay with their arms around each other basking in the warmth of another person. That night they both slept like babies. 

B’Elanna woke gently; a soft finger brushing her cheek had roused her. She held still savoring the feeling. Eventually, her eyes fluttered open “morning.”

“Good afternoon sleepy.”

“Thanks… How long have you been up?”

“About half an hour, I was enjoying the view.” B’Elanna smiled back up at Sara. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure”

“You are hiding something from me and I don’t know what it is.”

“OK…” B’Elanna felt dread build up.

“I did a background check on you.”

“What?”

“Sorry, I couldn’t help it.”

“And what did you find?”

“Very little. I confirmed that you’re not a murderer, or that you haven’t been caught yet.” B’Elanna rolled her eyes. “You said last night that you had scars and stuff.”

“Yeah. More stuff than scars.”

“Are you embarrassed by them?” B’Elanna maneuvered up so her head was resting on her hand.

“Not really I just don’t want to scare you off.” Sara didn’t respond for awhile instead she took Lanna’s free hand and began tracing her fingers.

“You have very strange fingerprints.”

This was starting to get uncomfortable, “I’d never really noticed.”

“You have no arches and no whorls. The ridge definition is extremely clear and they all run in straight lines up and under your fingernail and down to your knuckles.”  B’Elanna pulled her hand away and examined it closely.

“Is there something wrong with that?”

“No, nothing wrong, in fact I like it cause it completely unique.”

B’Elanna attempted to throttle down her anger. “So what’s the point then?”

“I just, I want to know everything about you. I really care and don’t like that you want to hide things from me.”

“Look. I’ve never been comfortable with my… um…” B’Elanna wondered how to describe Klingon attributes “my deformities I guess you could call them.”

“Did you show them to Tom?”

“What?”

“You talk about him a lot, I can tell you liked him, did you let him in?”

“I… physically yes, but not emotionally.”

“Ok, so why don’t you show me your body then.”

“Like I said, I don’t want to repulse you.”

“Lanna, I solve gruesome homicides for a living and I’m one step short of being an alcoholic. I doubt you have any trait that would send me running.”

“Could you just let me think about it? I want to be able to be comfortable explaining it before I show you.”

“Alright, I was just asking that’s all. I don’t want to push. I just…”

Torres leaned forward to give her a gentile kiss “It’s OK. I’m sorry that it’s so hard to let you in. I’ve always been a bit blocked off. My father left my mother and me, and I was teased a lot in school all because of how I look.”

“I really doubt that your dad left you because of how you look.”

Torres shook her head, denying the truth of the words. “Can I ask you a question then?”

“OK, I suppose that’s fare.”

“Why won’t you talk about your family?”

“Most of my scars are emotional, mental. They put them there. I don’t like to talk about it.”

“Alright then we are both keeping something so we’re even.”

Sara sighed, she really wanted to connect with B’Elanna fully. In fact, she’d gone so far as to ask Catherine what to do about the stalled out relationship. Hopefully, Catherine’s idea would help. “I have a suggestion.”

“OK.”

“How about we book a couple of days off next month and go on a road trip. You can practice driving. I can get away from the booze for a while. We’ll find a cabin in the woods to hole up in. Once we’re there, alone, and away from everything we’ll discuss our demons. That gives us both a month to get ready to talk and only a short time for actual talk. Sound good?”

On the surface, the suggestion had seemed right, her only problem was the worry that she’d be left in a cabin in the woods when Sara ran away from her alien physiology. However, this conversation had to happen sometime and a month seemed like as good a time as any. “I’m in.” After that the only thing left to do was get up and get ready for work. They parted with a quick kiss and a tense silence.

B’Elanna was in her second office a few hours later tweaking the sound quality on a pair of headphones when her cell began to ring. “Torres.”

“Miss Torres? This is Detective Brass.” B’Elanna’s blood ran cold.

“Is she dead?”

“No, no she’s OK, but there was an accident in the lab. A weapon they were testing misfired, the bullet grazed her cheek and forearm. We would like to send her home, but she’s refusing to go. Nick suggested that you might have more luck.” Torres was already on her way out of the lab heading to the front desk.

“Was anyone else hurt?”

“Nope, Sara was the only one that got in the way.”

“Am I going to a hospital?”

“The paramedics cleared her; she’s still at the office.”

“I’ve got a ride. I’ll be there as fast as traffic allows.”

“Alright, remember it’s just a flesh wound. Don’t get killed rushing in here. The most dangerous issue is her temper. She’s blaming herself for letting a rookie handle the weapon and taking it out on us.”

“OK. See you in a bit.” Torres looked at the two women working the front desk. “Do either of you have a car?”

“I do B’Elanna.” Jackie offered. “Why?”

“My girlfriend was injured at work; I need to get her to go to a doctor.” Jackie stood quickly and motioned for Torres to follow her into the parking garage. “Thanks, I owe you one.” 

The car had barely stopped when Torres jumped out. She yelled thanks over her shoulder as she sprinted toward the main entrance. Greg was waiting at the front “Oh good.” He said causally, “I was worried you’d try to drive here or something.”

“Where is she?”

He pointed upwards, “Still in the lab testing the gun.”

“Is it safe now?” She asked as they were rushed quickly through security.

“We’re being more careful with it now and we’ve managed to solve the case because of it. Accidental not suicide.” Greg pushed the button on the elevator.

“Good. Will she be able to go home?”

“Ability and willingness are two very different things when it comes to our Sara.” Greg said knowingly.

B’Elanna smirked, finding his insistence on co-relationship amusing. The doors opened to reveal a bustling office. People were walking from lab to lab talking animatedly. The air smelled of solvents and equipment. The windowed labs allowed Torres a clear view of each section; they passed DNA, trace, several layout rooms. Some people would have found the place too sterile but Torres felt immediately at home here. They approached a lab with a blown out window and police tape strung out around it. The glass was still holding together, but it was cracked crazily and no longer see-through in three sections.  The women B’Elanna vaguely remembered to be Catherine was using tweezers to pull the remains of a bullet out of one of the sections.

“Alright everyone heads up! Ballistics firing two! Firing two!” Sara shouted from inside. Greg motioned for Torres to cover her ears. A few seconds later four shots rang out followed by several clicks. “Sorry!” Sara yelled again “Make that four!” She lowered her volume so that only the people around could hear, “stupid fucking gun. I know the problem now, Laura it was not your fault. The gun’s been altered to fire full auto. If this guy didn’t accidentally shoot himself I’d bet he would have killed someone else eventually.” There was some noise as the gun was secured and then Sara emerged from the lab looking angry and came to an abrupt halt when she saw B’Elanna standing there (alone because the others seemed to have vanished). “What the hell are you doing here?”

B’Elanna wasn’t use to hearing that sort of welcome from her girlfriend so she supplied a better one. “Hello, no it’s ok Lanna, I’m fine. Brass just called you to say I was shot out of quasi-paternal obligation. Thank you for your concern.” She crossed her arms and did her best attempt at mimicking the famous (to her) Janeway stare.

“Brass called you? The overbearing jerk. I’m fine. I have work to do.” Sara brushed passed her and marched into another lab. B’Elanna shrugged and followed. She knew she’d get into trouble if she pushed too hard but she also knew that Sara’s anger was probably all bluster.

“He was just looking out for you.”

“I know that. I can take care of myself. You people need to let me do my job.”

“Us people?” Torres sighed frustrated trying not to take it personally. “Look, I came down here cause Brass called and asked me to convince you to come home or at least see a doctor but if you don’t want to leave that’s up to you. Just remember that I’m only a call away.” B’Elanna turned to walk out; secretly hoping Sara would call her back.

“Lanna...” Torres slowed and turned. “Look, I’m fine, really.” Sara brought Lanna over to the break room “wait in here and as soon as I’ve put the evidence away and finished the paperwork I’ll give you a tour and maybe call it a night. On one condition...”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“I get to see your labs... both of them.”

“Hmmm, I suppose that could be arranged.” Torres sat at the table and pulled out her laptop. She’d only been working for a few seconds when Grissom sat down beside her.

“Hello.”

B’Elanna had a hard time putting on a pleasant expression. “Hi.”

“I don’t believe we have been properly introduced.”

“No, we haven’t been. Other than the guy that overworks her too much.” She replied bitterly.

“Look, I know we got off on the wrong foot.  I think that you are the best thing that could have happened to her. She smiles now. She takes time off. She even eats regularly. Her and I, we were never good together. We’re friends now that’s it. Thank you for coming in to get her. I’ve had to force her to look after herself before and now it’s your turn.”

“And she’s doing way better than you ever did Gil.” Sara said from the door. “At least I know she cares more about me than the job.”

“And that’s why I’m your supervisor not your date.”

“I’m going to show her around, obviously not letting her touch anything, and then I’m going to go home for the day. I hate to admit it but I’m a bit shaken. I’ll be in for regular shift tomorrow. I already sent Laura home.”

Gil stood and took her chin in his hand. “Good. Go get that checked first thing, I’ll need the exam notes for the incident report.”

“I know.”  

Sara and B’Elanna left the lab hours later, B’Elanna’s head was buzzing with idea’s to make their jobs easier.

They were heading to the hospital to have the bullet wounds examined. They looked painful and Torres wanted nothing more than to run a dermal re-generator over them to make it all go away but she knew that would be disastrous and resisted the urge.

It was late evening when they got to NCES for a tour of B’Elanna’s lab. The people there didn’t even acknowledge them, only the boss, Amber, came out to say hello and remind Torres of the classified information in the building. The tour was very short.

At the next lab they were greeted warmly by the front desk people. Jackie asked if Sara was OK, genuinely concerned. This tour was a bit longer if only because getting into the lab and waiting for classified stuff to be covered took time. Sara was incredibly interested in the facilities, even inquiring as to the cost of rentals. She blanched when she heard the cost. “You can afford that? Where do you get the money?”

“Every useful invention leads to a bonus. I’d just got one when I found this place so I used it to pay ahead a few extra months. Each bonus tops up my rent. If you’d like a space here I can get a secondary work room…”

“I might think about it. This place is amazing. I like the pool.”

“Me too, I’d ask if you wanted to go for a swim but I figure that might sting a bit. Let’s head home.”

“Sure, I can’t believe how tired I am.”

“I can. Getting shot at is exhausting even if it’s an accidental flesh wound.” It wasn’t far from the lab to the condo so B’Elanna got into the driver’s seat. Sara protested a bit but recognized the dangers of her driving with the pain killers she’d been given kicking in. They made it home without any major incidents, if you don’t count the near rear ending of a transport.

It took a few days for Sara to feel better and everyone but Torres was impressed with the speed she was healing at. Torres of course was unsurprised because as soon as Sara fell asleep at night the med kit came out and bit by agonizing bit B’Elanna was treating the wounds. It wasn’t a risk that Sara would wake up while she worked because the medications in her hypo-spray ensured that Sara slept the night with very little pain. She was going slowly enough that it looked like Sara was taking really good care and was doing a good job healing


	6. The Cabin Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> B'Elanna and Sara leave for their getaway. They have just one week to air all their dirty laundry, to expose their secrets and see if this relationship can make it.
> 
> *** Please see notes for an additional warning for this chapter***
> 
> I'm very curious about how people see this chapter. I'd really appreciate some constructive feedback please :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter contains explicit sexual content and isn't appropriate to read at work or with you're kids glancing over your shoulder (LOL embarrassing when that happens right?)
> 
> Also, remember this is a half-alien and a human interaction and I've let my mind free on some of this. I refuse to believe that aliens all have the exact same genital structure as humans do, but frequently in star trek it appears they do or at least implies that they do. So while what I have done to Torres is not cannon I do believe that it's open to interpretation and within the realm of possibility. 
> 
> *****************************************************************

It was nearing D-day (as B’Elanna had taken to calling this trip in her mind) and B’Elanna was freaking out. Instead of focusing on work, she spent her time rehearsing the ‘I have a rare genetic disorder that’s so rare no one knows about it’ speech. The plan, such as it was, was to take the mobile emitter off and let Sara see her body and allow her to draw her own conclusions. Explaining the emitter was going to be tricky but she could always hide behind ‘classified’ to avoid serious problems. She can literally, and honestly, state that she (and her crew) found the device in 1996 while she was in LA on a military operation to retrieve stolen technology from Starling’s building.

Sara was also very nervous about the upcoming trip as indicated by her avoidance of B’Elanna in the days before they left. Sara actually slept at home for several days that month, instead of going right to B’Elanna’s after her shift. She found herself trying to find a way to explain her history and struggling to come up with the best way to say it. She finally resorted to printing out the police file and intended to hand it over to her girlfriend. She felt like a coward but knew she’d struggle to get things out in a coherent fashion. She’d offer to elaborate if B’Elanna requested it, but only after she’d read the entire file.

The night before their week long trip, Sara called to assure B’Elanna that she’d be there to pick her up at six a.m. on the dot. Neither woman slept very well that night. Torres was up at three, packing and repacking her kit. Sara had to struggle not to get there hours early. When six o’clock came, Sara pulled up and handed the keys to B’Elanna.

“You want me to drive your truck?”

“Yes. All the principles are the same. We’re just bigger that’s all.”

“What if I hit something?”

“That’s what insurance is for silly.”

Catching the keys, B’Elanna and slipped into the driver’s seat. As nervous as she was to drive the truck she was very glad to have something new to focus on, so she could ignore the coming explosion.   

Anticipation made the drive uncomfortable, to say the least. The only words exchanged were tips on driving and the odd comment about the scenery. It was a long five hours. Unpacking their things succeeded in diverting their attention for another few minutes. By unspoken accord, they chose to wait until dark to start their talk, to kill the last few hours of daylight they went for a hike and ate supper in restaurant in a nearby town. They returned to the cabin just as the sun was setting over the mountains. The two women watched quietly until the mosquitoes chased them inside.

The silence was nearly defining. One of them would have to start talking soon or this would be a very uncomfortable week. Sara was the one who broke first. “Do we want to do this?”

“I want to do this.” B’Elanna said with a nervous laugh, rubbing the back of her neck and tucking her hair behind her ear. “Was it really a month? It felt like an hour…”

“It was a month. Who goes first?”

B’Elanna mustered up the tattered shreds of her courage. “Actually, how about I show you first that way when you take off screaming you won’t have had to tell me anything.” In her mind, that was the only outcome of this little exercise. She would be alone again. Torres felt like crying she was so nervous.

“You’re building me up so much I’m expecting a second head or something. It can’t be that bad, I’ve seen you in next to nothing before.”

“You know I’m an inventor?” Sara nodded. “I got started by inventing necessary things and one of those necessities was covering up my body so I could live in society like a normal person.” Torres hand went up to her shirt collar and fiddled with the emitter pinned there. B’Elanna took a calming breath and pulled. The near constant, reassuring itch of the emitter disappeared. Sara stood speechless before her girlfriend.

When Torres started to look like she was going to bolt Sara got herself in hand. She needed to come up with the right thing to say, very fast to avoid alienating her girlfriend. “You have got to show me how that thing works.” She said, pointing to the little device. Walking slowly up to B’Elanna, Sara took in the forehead ridges, “Bone or cartilage?” She murmured.

“Bone.” B’Elanna breathed, swallowing nervously.

Sara began to pace around her slowly. “Is that it or is there more?”

“A lot more.” Torres pulled off her shirt feeling more exposed than she ever had in her life. Sara reached a hand out to rub a finger over B’Elanna’s incredibly defined stomach muscles. “Muscle Hypertrophy.”

Torres flinched back a bit “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t.”

“Shh, it’s ok. I’m not gonna hurt you.” Sara’s hand fell away a sad look in her eyes. Then she moved around to her back, “What am I seeing here?”

“It’s kinda like an exoskeleton. I have bony plates along my spine, for protection apparently. Certainly not for aesthetic reasons.”

“My I touch?”

B’Elanna sighed, “I guess.”

Sara reverently brushed down her back then she noticed her ribs, there were too many of them. They seemed thicker and went lower than normal ribs. She slowly followed them around to set her hands on B’Elanna’s hips.

Torres spotted tears when she made eye contact. “See, its revolting. I understand if you want to leave. ”

“Stop trying to force me into an opinion. It’s not revolting in the slightest. I don’t want to leave. Is there an explanation or…”

“I’m an alien.” She said honestly.

“No need to be sarcastic.” Sara said quietly as she continued to pace. B’Elanna snorted. “Have you ever shown this to a doctor?”

“My mother’s deformities are much more pronounced. She knew what doctor to take me too.”

“So it’s genetic?”

“Yes. I’ve gone for second opinions to see if I could get it removed. Apparently, there’s no amount of plastic surgery that can fix it.”

“You don’t need to fix it.”

“Tell that to my five year old self. That’s why I have this.” Torres held up the emitter as an explanation.

“And here I thought it was a broach or something. How does it work?”

“It’s a portable holographic projector. I call it a mobile emitter. It simply uses photons and force fields to trick the eye into seeing something that’s not there.”

“Simply uses photons and force fields hmm?” She echoed. “You say that like holograms are common place. I didn’t think we have technology like that.”

“We don’t, not really. I don’t really know how it works. I found it in 1996 and tinkered with it until I could make it work. I covered myself up after that and never looked back. It has its flaws though. If you were to run your hand over my forehead you would feel the ridges.”

 “Last month when I was… I felt it but didn’t know what to make of it.”

“I’d wondered. You freaked me out; I almost hit you to get you to move your hand.”

“Sorry. I had no idea.”

B’Elanna shrugged. “How were you to know?”

“Does it hurt?”

“What the deformities or the emitter?”

“Both?”

“The emitter itches. The deformations are part of me so they only hurt my self-esteem and my ego.”

“If it’s genetic it’s not a deformity.”

“That’s not very scientific of you Sidle. There are many deformities that come right from the genome, it’s a normal part of mitosis, and you know it.”

“I know that, but I still wouldn’t call it a deformity, attribute is more like it, do you have many draw backs to it? Health issues things like that?”

“No.”

“Then I’d say it seems like some evolutionary trait that got triggered in your genome. Probably something that natural selection held on to in your family line for some reason. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Right. Well, it seems wrong when you’re different from everyone and people think you’re a freak.”

“Remember when I met you? The case that drove me to the bar that night?”

“Yes.” B’Elanna put her shirt back on.

“I didn’t go into details back then. I kinda wish I did now. So there was this guy who was killed; his sister was the one that called it in. She has a genetic abnormality called Hypertrichosis, which really only means excessive hair growth but some people call it the human werewolf syndrome, so did her brother. They were both covered head to toe in hair. They were attacked by a bastard who chose to fear instead of trying to understand them. The sister, Allison lived in a hidden room her whole life; she’d never really left before she went to call 911 the day her only real family was killed. The family was convinced she’d be killed. She and I became friends afterwards. I still go visit every few weeks to check in on her. I take her out to see things and help her figure out how to live as she is without all the fear and shame. It hurts me that others have hurt for how you look.” Sara gripped B’Elanna’s shoulders and shook her for emphasis as she said, “You are not a freak.”

“OK?”

“So, I’m not going to run screaming but once this settles in my head I may have other questions.”

“I figured. You can ask me anything.”

There was a pause, “is it skin deep or are there more differences underneath?”

“There’s more. I have extra ribs, an extra lung, redundant stomachs and…”

“And what? You won’t scare me away.”   

“An eight chambered heart.” Sara looked at her with understandable skepticism. B’Elanna looked at the floor, rubbing her sock across a scuff on the hardwood.

“You’re serious then? Would you let me listen? I mean to hear your heart?”

“I guess, it won’t sound much different. From what I’m told it sounds like a human heart murmur.” B’Elanna flushed at her slip and prayed that Sara just ignored it.

Sara put her hand on B’Elanna’s chest, feeling where her heart should be. B’Elanna adjusted her hand from the left side to the center. Sidle raised an eyebrow as she leaned forward to put her ear up to her chest. Torres had to force herself to stand still. There were two reactions warring for supremacy inside her, the urge to pick Sara up and bring her to the bedroom, and the urge to run away as fast as she could.

The thumping of her heart had a faint undertone of extra-beats. If she were unprepared for eight chambers, she’d have thought that tachycardia was a possibility, until she heard the rhythm was steady with four beats instead of two like a four-chambered heart. “That’s fascinating.” Sara stood back up and moved closer so that their breasts were practically touching. "Is it beating so fast because you’re scared or is it something more base?”

“Both.” The two women stared into each others eyes for a long time. Neither one seemed to breath much. Sara was the first to break once again; only this time it wasn’t with words, she suddenly dove in, kissing B’Elanna with a fervor that she’d not experienced before. At first, B’Elanna was too shocked by the aggressive nature of the kiss to do much but soon her blood heated up and she acted without thinking.

The next thing Sara knew she was picked up in unbelievably powerful arms and carried into the cabins bedroom. She melted into the implied strength and protection. She pulled her tank top off only losing contact for a second.

B’Elanna growled deep in her throat, teeth scraping along Sara’s cheek then she tossed her on the bed and began loosening the belt around Sara’s waist. When suddenly she stopped, stumbling backwards, gasping for breath, realizing what was happening.

“What? Why’d you stop?” Sara cried out, reaching for her.

“Because I can’t. I don’t want to hurt you.” B’Elanna cried out brokenly.

“You weren’t hurting me.”

“You have no idea the risks involved here.”

Sara sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed, facing Torres. “Do you want to talk more first?”

Gripping her hair in one hand B’Elanna approached. Trying to cool the fire burning through her body. She stopped with her thighs pressed to the mattress Sara’s legs on either side of hers. Instinct forced her to lean down and grip Sara’s face in both hands, pressing their lips together. She pulled back from the wet sloppy kiss and groaned, “No. I want to sink in to you. To make you mine.”

“So why don’t you?” Sara coaxed. “I’m willing. I’m consenting.” She captured her lips again. Torres dug her fingernails into her cheeks. Sara groaned into the contact, very much enjoying the sensation, she’d always been a bit of a masochist, likely from how she grew up.

B’Elanna came back to her sense again and released her hands. “Sex is different with me.”

“Sex is sex, how different can it be?” Sara grumbled, and then she realized something, “Is it a genetic difference?”

“Yes.” Torres whispered, looking away as she tried to step back again.

Sara pulled her close, hooking a finger into her belt loop to prevent her from moving. The other hand she allowed to wander freely up and down B’Elanna’s abs. “We’ve already established that nothing is going to scare me a way. Nothing will shock me.”

“I know but…”

“Why do you think you’re dangerous?”

“I like, I need…” Unable to resist her carnal urges B’Elanna gripped Sara’s arm and sniffed her wrist, biting down as lightly as she could manage.

 Sara leaned in and copied B’Elanna’s earlier movement, using her teeth to nip at her cheek. “You like a bit of pain?” B’Elanna’s breath hitched, “You like to be in control?”

“What?” B’Elanna asked, just barely containing her baser instincts.

“I like pain. Just don’t draw blood.” She whispered. “I want you Torres. Please,” Sara begged, throwing B’Elanna’s words back at her, “Sink in to me.”

B’Elanna growled again, this time when she leaned in she connected with Sara’s neck and sunk her teeth in, just barely avoiding breaking skin. Sara moaned; her hips rolled forward trying to seek pressure, stimulation. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Torres mumbled into her neck. “I don’t always know my own strength. Especially when I let go.”

Sara struggled for coherent thought as B’Elanna dragged her teeth along her carotid. “Safe word?” She mumbled. “If I shout… um… I don’t know… Greg. If I shout Greg, you’ve gone too far and you need to stop.”

B’Elanna stopped her nipping and laughed. “Well bringing him up would kill the mood. You sure you won’t be calling his name out by accident. I’m sure he calls yours out all the time, no matter who he’s with.”

Sara gasped and gave B’Elanna’s rear a good hard smack. “Shut the hell up and let me take your clothes off.”

B’Elanna once again gripped her hand and bit into her wrist. She moved her nuzzling mouth up until she was nipping Sara’s throat again. She had to remind herself to go slow, she’d done sensual sex before, it was always a struggle to restrain her Klingon half but she knew that slow, unhurried sex had just as much to offer as the hard, violent stuff. She moved back up to Sara’s cheek and bit her hard enough to leave a bruise. Sara cried out, B’Elanna hesitated, listening for the safe word. When nothing happened, she continued, her hands finding their way under the elastic of Sara’s sports bra, lifting it up and over her head.

Sara returned the favor, stripping Torres of both her shirt and bra. She leaned in the moment B’Elanna’s breasts swung free and took a nipple into her mouth, sucking hard. B’Elanna cried out.

She leaned down and finished unfastening Sara’s jeans, yanking them down off her hips, hooking her toe in them when they got stuck on her knees, pulling them the rest of the way off. She took some time to explore the simple black panties, rubbing the palm of her hand over Sara’s damp core, letting another growl out when Sara moaned “Yes”. She distantly thanked whatever god was listening that they didn’t have any neighbors to hear them.

While B’Elanna was distracted, exploring Sara’s body with her hands, Sara had managed to unclasp her partners skirt and dropped it to the ground along with her shorts and underwear. Now B’Elanna was naked in front of Sara for the first time. Sara’s hands moved to explore her sex. She gasped. Torres stilled, she twitched like she was about to pull away.

Sara set her hand back in motion, reverently learning the unique anatomy; she voiced her excitement with a moan. B’Elanna didn’t have a clitoris as she’d expected, instead she had something like a penis. Using her free hand, Sara shifted damp curls out of the way and gazed in wrapped fascination, it was the shape, colour, and length penis but thinner and much more dexterous. B’Elanna made as if to grip Sara’s hand to move it away. Sara whispered “Baby, trust me. You’re beautiful.” She breathed. “Relax. Does that feel good? Is this alright?” Sara asked stroked her gently, sending a shiver through B’Elanna,

“Yes. Please don’t stop.” B’Elanna concentrated on letting her guard down, letting her body act for her. Her clitoris shifted in response to Sara’s ministrations.

“Oh, God,” Sara groaned as her finger was wrapped in throbbing heat, feeling a subtle thrusting that moved in time with her lovers hips “That’s fucking hot.” She continued her exploration and found her entrance. Sara’s mouth watered with the need to taste her, but she knew it was too soon for that, so Sara rubbed over her. B’Elanna cried out, glancing up, Sara nearly came at the sight of B’Elanna’s head thrown back, flushed with ecstasy, nipples so erect they looked like they could cut something. Sara pressed inside; pulling B’Elanna’s exploring clit with her.

B’Elanna gave something like a broken laugh and pulled Sara’s greedy hand away. “Pushy aren’t we?” She asked. “You’re going to make me come before I’m ready if you keep that up.” Her voice raspy and low, pupils blown out with lust.

“Well, we have waited like what seven months? I’m impatient”

B’Elanna chuckled again, settling her knees on either side of Sara’s hips, letting their bodies press together, Sara felt a firm pressure begin to stroke against her panties. She thrust up desperate for more. “We can do this one of two ways. With or without penetration.” B’Elanna muttered between wet, sloppy kisses.

“Can’t we do both? Good god I want you inside me.” Sara begged. After that, B’Elanna’s hesitance disappeared. The last vestiges of clothing were torn away from their bodies. Then with a controlled power that got Sara hotter than anything they’d done so far, B’Elanna gripped her thighs and shifted them both back so they were laying on the bed. B’Elanna’s naked body pressed down on top of Sara, her skin so hot it felt as though it would burn. They rolled their hips, seeking, heat to heat. B’Elanna’s body working with her now, her clit reached out, seeking what she wanted most, begging for entry.

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life. Show me what you can do.”

B’Elanna entered her. Sinking as deep as she could possibly go. Then she pulled out again, slipping back in, agonizingly slow.

“Oh, god. You’re so perfect.” Sara gasped, thrusting her hips “I need more. Don’t stop. God don’t ever stop.”

The next time B’Elanna bit Sara’s neck, her skin was slick with sweat, B’Elanna lapped it up, sweet and salty on her tongue. “You feel so good Sara. So good, I can’t, I’ve never…” B’Elanna groaned “God I love you.”

“Love you too Lanna, you have no idea.”

B’Elanna kept herself moving slow, “I’m going to fill you up baby. Are you ready?”

“Yes. God. Do it.”

B’Elanna let her first orgasm free with a gasp, her clitoris engorged, filling Sara completely, nearly doubling in size. Sara cried out as she stretched to accommodate the change. B’Elanna stilled for a few seconds to let her adjust then pulled out and thrust back in, making sure to hit that magical spot that set most women howling. She pinned Sara’s hands above her head and dug her fingernails in as she thrust.

Sara thought she was going to explode; her heart must surely be about to burst she felt so awakened. Her mind and soul was one hundred percent into sex for the first time in her life. She’d never felt so connected to another person before. The pain from the nails breaking the skin on her palms, mixed with the feel of B’Elanna filling her up and pounding into her, she wasn’t going to last long. And she didn’t, B’Elanna rolled her hips in just the right way and Sara broke. She screamed her orgasm into the B’Elanna’s ear.

B’Elanna felt her partner grip around her, muscles clenching and pulsing so tight it hurt. The pressure was so intense that it wrung a second orgasm out of her with a shock, she ejaculated deep inside Sara, filling her even more. She gasped for breath; Sara was a mumbling mess below her, still desperately thrusting begging for more, wanting to ride the wave again. B’Elanna didn’t slacken her pace. She reached between Sara’s thighs and added her fingers to the stimulation caressing, rubbing, teasing, in all the right ways.

Sara saw stars. She gripped B’Elanna’s back, digging nails in, undoubtedly breaking skin. She was so close, so filled with pleasure that it bordered on pain, her body shook with need. Sara tried to match B’Elanna’s rhythm, frantic for more pressure, more contact, more everything. B’Elanna arched back and howled. Her body shaking, hips thrusting erratically, headboard banging loudly against the wall. Sara’s legs held her in tight, not allowing a single inch of space between them. She could feel B’Elanna pulsing inside her so deep; then she was covered as B’Elanna lay on top of her suddenly thrusting harder than before. A sudden explosion of lust and pleasure more intense than anything Sara had ever experienced before raged inside her, she didn’t even hesitate when she bit down on B’Elanna’s shoulder. B’Elanna cried out again as Sara tipped over the edge a second, then a third time, a few more thrusts and another few bites and Sara burst a final time, this time it was so powerful that she blacked out.

B’Elanna gasped for air and collapsed beside her lover. She slowly allowed her body to retract with a gasp. Sara groaned, hips pushing forward in a feeble attempt to recapture what she’d lost. Gently, Torres picked Sara up and pulled the blankets down so they could snuggle under them. Sara nestled down as the warmth enveloped her. She sighed into B’Elanna’s neck completely satisfied. B’Elanna brushed Sara’s sweat soaked hair from her face and gently kissed her forehead.

There was no going back now, the purpling bite mark proved it. B’Elanna was committed. She found herself reciting the Klingon marriage vows in her head. She’d have said them right then if Sara knew how to respond. She only hoped that Sara felt the same.  


	7. The Cabin Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara has a few pointed questions for her Girlfriend. 
> 
> B'Elanna gets a few answers.
> 
> ************WARNINGS HAVE BEEN INCREASED FOR THIS CHAPTER DUE TO GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF A HISTORICAL RAPE (of a child) AND VIOLENCE FROM THE VICTIMS POV********************  
> I don't think it's any worse than canon typical violence for a CSI episode.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always swore I'd never write one of these apologies for letting RL interfere with my posting but look at that, here I am writing this: 
> 
> Sorry for the delay folks, I had a death in the family that triggered three weeks of the worst writers block I've ever had (I literally struggled writing grocery lists).
> 
> I will try to keep going and post regularly just know that I'm not abandoning my work. I just was struggling for a bit. It seems that this weekend broke things a bit for me so now it's just a matter of keeping the ball rolling. 
> 
> The story here takes a few liberties describing what I think has made Sara who she is. They never discussed her brother in the show, they never give details about what happened to her as a child so I have created what I think works with her characterization.
> 
> When dealing with the topic of B'Elanna's 'differences' I think that a scientist would be just as accepting as Sara was in this because Occam's Razor really does apply here. (Or it would for me as a human faced with a person like Torres). 
> 
> As always please feel free to read and review :) I love feedback like I love oxygen!

They woke up the next morning tangled in the sheets and each other. Sara smiled at her before reaching up to run her fingers wonderingly over her lovers’ ridges. B’Elanna pulled back instinctively. She’d never even let Tom touch her there. Sara made a shushing sound and continued her explorations. B’Elanna forced herself to relax and accept the touch; the sensation was far more comforting than she ever expected it to be. By the time Sara had finished exploring her features B’Elanna was practically purring with contentment. 

“You’re not human are you?”

Torres’ eyes flew open, shocked with the blunt question. “What’s that suppose to mean?”

“You actually told me last night but I dismissed it. But after last night?”

B’Elanna flushed, she’d managed to keep herself under control the previous night, but there were some traits, some behaviour that you just couldn’t miss.

“I’m not going to get pregnant am I?”

B’Elanna let out a short almost panicked bark of a laugh. “I’m still female, no sperm.”

“Are you?”

“Am I what? Female?” Playing stupid seemed like the best policy.

“An alien? Wait that almost sounds like I’m being prejudice or something…” Sara broke off her sentence in confusion not knowing where to go from there.

“I am human, mostly, or rather half anyway… Are you going to report me to some government group? Did I make a mistake trusting you with this?” Torres began pulling away from Sara.

“No! I’m not going to report you! I don’t even know if there is a government branch to cover that sort of thing. Are you a spy? Or an invading army?”

B’Elanna laughed again, this time it was with genuine humor and sat up on her side of the bed. She crossed folded her legs up and faced her partner. “Do I look like an army?”

“Not really. Do you have a space ship?”

At this point Torres couldn’t tell if these were real questions or some kind of a trick to prove she was insane. She chose to do what she’d always done with Sara and go for the brutally honest (unbelievable) answer; she also decided to spit it all out at once in one big jumble. “My ship is stuck in the delta quadrant about 70 000 light years from earth and 400 years into the future. I’m the chief engineer so technically it’s not actually mine. Things had gone nuts on us, God, it felt like weeks, nothing was working power fluctuations and then I fell through some sort of anomaly and landed in the Mojave. My mother is a Klingon from the planet Kronos, my father is human he was born on earth. I never learned to drive a car because I was too busy learning how to build and fly star ships for the United Federation of Planets and Starfleet. I did spend time in a war zone; I was an engineer on board a small vessel, fighting a resistance against the Cardassians. I lost a lot of friends in that war. Our base was in the Bad Lands on the border of Cardassian and Bajoran space, so that’s why I said the bar reminded me of home when we first met. I do invent things, but I’m careful to make it something that I knew nothing about before arriving here so I don’t contaminate the timeline too much. But just being here has done that already. You are the only person on the planet who knows the truth about me.” B’Elanna stopped talking in order to take a breath and judge what Sara’s reaction could be.

“The nick-knacks in your living room, those are to take back with you?”

That was not the first question she expected to get. “Yes. I have a friend who is an archeology fanatic. You must think I’m insane. How can you be so calm? I’m listening to myself and thinking I must be crazy and I know it’s the truth.”

“A famous philosopher, whose name escapes me at the moment, said that the simplest solution no matter how improbable it may be is likely the correct one. Your traits, _not_ deformities, traits are throughout your whole body, from basic sex characteristics to bone structure. If it was just a genetic condition there would be major health problems associated with the enhancements, however if it was simply part of your DNA, the evolution of a race, the problems would have been selected out and you would look as you do now I suppose. I also know, intellectually, that there have to be other races living out there.” Sara gestured toward the ceiling. “It’s statistically improbable that there wouldn’t be. Additionally, humans have been dreaming about time travel for decades and it’s only a matter of time before someone figured out how to do it and by that logic it stands to reason that time travel exists already.”

“How do you come to that conclusion?” Genuinely interested to see her girlfriends mind let loose on theoretical ideas.

“The whole point of traveling through time is to go back right?”

“Or forward to bring tech back and sell it.” B’Elanna said wearily.

“Exactly, that means that there would be some type of back and forth going on. Therefore, if it’s invented in say the 59th century people would have come back to our time, or rather my time right?” Torres nodded, following so far. “And that would bring the technology that created the ability to travel through time here to the 21st century. Since it’s here then it becomes a reality before it’s invented simply because it had been brought back to this time… Does that make sense?”

“Sort of, yes.” She replied after thinking about it for a second. “I have to clarify that coming here, for me, was a terrifying accident. It wasn’t technological and that type of causality loop is exactly why it’s against our laws to time travel. We have something, a law I guess, called the prime directive and an extension of that is the temporal prime directive that dictates our actions if we should find ourselves back in time. I am supposed to keep a low profile, avoid contact with anyone and keep our technology out of the hands of people from the time I find myself in.”

“How are you doing so far?” Sara asked as she resumed petting B’Elanna’s forehead ridges.

Torres laughed “Horribly. I have used my technical skills to invent stuff which has made me a bit of a rock star in the research and development sector so there goes the low profile order. And I have fallen in love with a human girl from the past so it’s a no go on contact. The only thing I’ve managed to do is keep the tech hidden, not an easy thing to do when your girlfriend investigates stuff for a living.”

“None of that stuff under the sheets in your place was military was it?”

“Nope.”

“Are you going to kill me now that I know?”

“Of course not. I have to ask you to keep it quiet though. There are people here who would arrest and literally dissect me.”

“I’m going ask this and I don’t mean any insult by it. You are serious? Not lying?”

“I have never lied to you. Well almost never. I didn’t sleep with my driving tester. I made that up completely.”

“You haven’t lied? You have a whole back story how can you… wait, let me think. You said you lived in San Francisco.”

“I went to Starfleet academy and lived in the sunset district while I was attending.”

“You even said you thought your mother was an alien.”

“I did and she is. The only thing I haven’t told you the truth about was my research for the military and how I arrived here. I had to hack into social security, DMV and other government agencies to set up my identity.”

“OK. I’m going to go with this for now and get to know you as you. No more cover-ups.”

“Promise not to turn me in and I will consider it.”

“I promise on one condition.”

“What would that be?”

“If your ship ever comes to get you don’t just run out without a word and I want a tour.”

“I don’t know if my captain would allow that Sara. She’s a stickler for the rules.” 

“But you won’t just run?”

“No I won’t, I’ll tell you before I leave.”

“Is Torres your real name?”

“Yes. I decided on the first day that I would be easier to find if my crew found a way here. I know from experience that they would monitor communications looking for my name. Though they’d probably just scan for my physiology.” They both lapsed into silence. Torres felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off her. Someone knew the truth even if she only believed it because there was no other easier answer.

Sara looked at her seriously. “I suppose it’s my turn?”

“For what?”

“Letting my demons out.”

“Oh, right…” B’Elanna was relieved. She figured that she’d have to face suspicion and anger later but for now she was going to have some of her own questions answered.

“Um… it’s not as spectacular as being half human and from the future…”

“It’s you so it will be spectacular.” Sara smiled at her as Torres brushed a lock of hair out of Sara’s eye. “Because you _are_ spectacular.”

“Why can I take complements so easily from you? I’ve never been able to accept them from anyone else.” Sara lay back, stretching her arms then folding her arms so her head rested on them.

B’Elanna rolled over, tossing her arm across Sara’s belly. “Maybe it’s because you know I’m being serious.”

“Maybe.” Sara began stroking the skin on her arm as she spoke, barely above a whisper. “My childhood sucked. I suppose I never actually got a childhood, not really anyway. I spent more time terrified and hiding under my bed than any child has a right to. I remember the fights they’d get into. It was horrible, all the screaming; things smashing. My first memories are clouded with terror and pain. I knew what the impact of a body on drywall sounded like when I was three years old. I still have nightmares about it. My brother, who probably should have tried protecting me, just lost himself in drugs and alcohol. He’s ten years older than me. My mom, she was never mentally stable, so it’s no surprise that she wasn’t able to help either at least not until that last day.” Sara’s story trailed off. She pushed herself up and leaned against the headboard. Shifting away from B’Elanna completely.

Wanting to give her space, Torres decided to mimic her position, avoiding contact. When the silence stretched on too long she prompted “Sara?”

“Huh? What?”

“Do you need more time?”

She sighed in frustration. “No. I guess. I just, I never really tell people. This’s hard. I don’t like it when people judge me.”

“I just told you I’m an alien from the future. You didn’t judge me so why would I judge you?”

Sara snorted. “This sort of thing is different.”

“Not really. How could anyone thing less of you because you were being hurt by the adults who were meant to protect you?”

“I guess you’re right. Honestly, I just hate describing the worst day of my life to people.”

“I’m not people. I’m your girlfriend and I love you.”

There was a beat more silence then Sara glanced over, she whispered “Thanks, I love you too,” and offered a sad smile clouded with memories and pain. She seemed to set her shoulders then, resolving to tell all, regardless of the consequences. “Crap, fine, here goes. My father was abusive, um, physically and sexually. He beat my mom too. I don’t know what he did to my brother but it must have been bad cause he left when he was fourteen, ran away and no one even looked for him. Well, I did as an adult, I know he’s alive but he’s not a great person so I never contacted him. Anyway, my parents. So one day she walked in on us. He was… he was raping me. I was trying so hard not to cry but it hurt too much and she heard it. Mom snapped, had a schizophrenic break right there in that moment, the jealousy did it from what she claims. That I was a slut and begging for attention that I had no right to win, frankly I’m lucky she targeted him and not me.

“The next thing I knew he was on the floor beside the bed on his back and she was slamming a butcher knife into his chest. I watched her stab him, thirty-six times. Do you know how long that takes? It feels like hours. I screamed when she started, I tried to pull her away but she hit me. Grabbed me by the hair and threw me across the room. By that time I was covered in blood from cast off, the knife nicked my cheek when she tossed me too, so I was bleeding from my face, between my legs, he was bleeding from everywhere. My mom’s hands were bleeding cause the knife kept slipping and slicing her. I blacked out when I hit the wall for a second or two, there were three new stab wounds when woke back up, five before I was knocked out. My head was ringing when I stood, fight or flight instinct I guess, I couldn’t stay laying on the floor scrunched up against the wall. Then I just stood there staring, counting the number of times she stabbed him. She was screaming about how I wasn’t his favorite, she was. She was ranting about other more insane things too, like she was God’s sward, the Devil had possessed him and it was her duty to cut the evil out of him. I can remember the sounds, the wet thunk of the knife at each impact.” Sara laughed brokenly. “I hate it when horror movies get it wrong, most of them do. It’s not the wet popping and squishing sound they make it out to be. You can actually here the muffled crack of bones breaking, the metal nicking off the thicker ones. His grunting with each impact, he never cried out or anything, he just took it, except when he was yelling at us both. I remember him laughing at her. Telling her that she was weak and stupid, telling her that we both deserved what we got. He looked right at me once right in the middle of it all and said I’d always be his little bitch. That no one else would want me cause I was his. When she punctured a lung I could hear the sucking and slurping of oxygen and blood as he struggled for air.” Sara gasped for breath; her arms clung tightly around her chest. A single tear slipped down her cheek. She hit her head off the head board a few times.

That wouldn’t do, B’Elanna quickly reached over and put her hand behind Sara’s head to reduce the impacts. “Sara, lovely, can I hold you? Are you OK with that?”

Sara violently shook her head and pushed B’Elanna’s arm away. Grabbing a pillow she shoved it behind her head. She wanted to get the rest out. If Torres touched her now she’d break down and her words would fail. Thankfully B’Elanna made no further move to reach out. “I guess my bedroom window was open or something because the police showed up a few minutes after he stopped yelling and laughing, he must have been dead by then. They banged on the door calling for someone to answer. Mom got one last stab in and then handed me the knife. She made me answer the door naked, with a bloody knife my hand. She told me to tell them I’m the one that stabbed him and that God willed me to be punished for my actions. I’ve never been able to decide what was more frightening that night, being raped, watching my father get stabbed that many times by my own mother, the sounds, or having the police shove guns in my face and start screaming at me. I didn’t respond to them. I just stood there. The report said I was ‘unresponsive.’ It didn’t take them long to realize it wasn’t me who killed my father. Mom attacked them when they tried to take her in. It took six officers to hold her down and get her cuffed. Some social worker lady stayed with me in the ambulance and at the hospital. I couldn’t talk to anyone for a long time. I spent years in foster care feeling like nobody, you know they make us carry our things in garbage bags instead of boxes, do you know what kind of message that sends to a child? But foster care wasn’t so bad, I guess. I lucked out and didn’t get abused by any of them but I knew enough kids who did that I was in constant fear. Some hated me because I wouldn’t talk, some genuinely tried to help but I wasn’t an easy kid to have around so no one kept me. I remained a ward of the state until I turned fourteen, then they shoved me in a half-way house for social reject kids. I spent all my energy blocking the world out, studying. Even though I didn’t communicate well with anyone, I still got straight A’s in school and graduated on time which is something of a miracle, I suppose.

“While I was getting my degree in theoretical physics at Harvard I got into a relationship with a different type of predator, he could have given my father a run for his money. He was arrested over spring break my last year at Harvard; apparently he was a serial rapist. I left Harvard after graduating top of my class and got my MA at Berkeley. Then I met Gil and I found my passion working in criminology. Gil called me in on an investigation and I decided I’d fallen in love with him because he was the first man who showed interest in me that didn’t want to beat me or rape me. Obviously, I never really dealt with any of the trauma or you wouldn’t have found me getting drunk at the bar that night.”

“How old were you?”

“When my father died?”

B’Elanna nodded.

 “9.”

B’Elanna tried to clamp down on her rage and ground out between teeth so clenched she thought they’d pop, “If he wasn’t dead I’d find him and kill him myself.” Without conscious though, Torres pulled Sara into her arms in an attempt to protect her from the traumatic memories playing in her mind. Sara fell sideways, unresistingly; tears streaming down her cheeks, sobs shaking her thin frame to pieces. B’Elanna held on for dear life. “I don’t know what to say. Other than I will never let anyone hurt you like that again.”

“I’ve always worried that I would break like my mom did and kill someone.” Sara whispered. “I worry that I have the murder gene.”

“That’s a load of crap. There’s no such thing.” B’Elanna snapped bluntly. “First of your mom protected you from him, it may have taken a while but she did end up protecting you. She may have been very confused and dealt with it in a completely inappropriate way but she ultimately saved you from a life of abuse. Your father deserved what he got; I just wish he’d gotten it before he hurt you so bad. As far as the murder gene, I don’t think that’s a thing. I’ll have to check my data bases but I just don’t think there is one. If anyone has a murder gene it’d be me as an evolutionary trait. My mother’s people are an aggressive violent species whose religion focuses quite literally on fighting and killing, I actually can’t get into Stovokor—Klingon heaven—if I don’t kill enough people in honorable battle. If I wasn’t born a murderer as a hot blooded Klingon, then you definitely aren’t one as a full human. Plus, you’re healthier than your mother, you know what to do in an abusive situation don’t you? You would fight back but you’d do it humanely, using your training as a law enforcement officer.”  

“You think so?”

“I know so.” B’Elanna settled in, stroking Sara’s hair, murmuring comforting nonsense into her ear, rocking her gently, until her sobbing eased and she dozed for a while. When she startled awake again B’Elanna asked her if she wanted to keep talking more or go do something else.

“I think I’d like to take a break from all this and go for another hike. Does that sound ok?”

B’Elanna kicked off the blankets and stood. She pulled Sara up and into a great big hug. “Before we go, can we just get one thing clear?”

“Sure.”

“I’m not going to be scared away by your past. And there’s no way you are going to accidently snap and murder me. I’d be able to stop you and get you help before you could hurt me at all.”

Sara let out a relieved breath, pleased that Torres seemed to know what she needed to hear just then. “Good. Thank you. I’m not going to be scared away by your world either.”

“Good. Thank you. So now we just need to get to know each other without the secrets and we should be able to make this work. No more fear.”

“No more fear.” Sara agreed. “Now can we get to an actual vacation instead of all this emotional shit?”

“I am definitely good with that lovely.”

  

A few days later B’Elanna was sitting in front of her laptop shifting some funds from one account to another in order to pay a bill. Sara leaned over her shoulder and watched with some interest. “Why don’t you just use your tech to hack in and create money? Why don’t you just add a few zeros? Wouldn’t that be easier and safer for you than working in research and development?”

“I could. It’d be easier for sure. But it’d be dishonorable and as much as I’m already going to Grethore, I don’t want to make it any worse than it is.”

“Grethor?”

“Klingon hell.”

“Why do you think you’re going to hell?” Sara laughed. “Because of what we are to each other? Is it a gay thing?”

“Oh god no. Klingon’s may be backwards but they’re not that bad. We mate with those we’re most compatible with or with those who will move our houses into greater glory on the battle field. Gender and love have very little to do with it. No, it’s because I’m not a warrior. I only fight and kill when I must. I don’t seek it out. I don’t enjoy killing.”

“Wait. When you must? So you are a murderer then?”

B’Elanna laughed; “That all depends on your definition of murder.” Sara had been accusing her of being a murder from the day they’d met. Now she’d finally get to clarify a few things. “I fought in a war against a despicable, violent race of thieving conniving P’Tach’s. I killed many people in that war, but according to the prevailing governments on both sides we were terrorists and what we were doing was illegal. According to them I’m a murderer. According to my morals and those who we were protecting, they were justified kills, honorable. If I’d died while I was in the resistance I’d have gone to Stovokor because I was fighting in battle. Now… Not so much.”   

“So if all they care about is killing, why would stealing affect you?”

“The Klingon faith takes honor very seriously. Stealing a fortune instead of winning it in the field of battle is as bad a sin as arguing for peace among the people. Not being a warrior is enough to get me on the Barge of the Dead but it won’t be so bad if I lead an honorable life. Stealing would screw me right over. Not following the traditions of my people have already screwed me over but still, let’s not lay transgression on top of transgression.”

“Huh, so if you were to get a job helping catch bad guys, go to war with evil I suppose, would that help tip the balance in your favor to keep you out of hell?”

“I guess. I can’t though. That would mess with the timeline too much. The first abducted child on my case load, I’d be too tempted to use my technology to find them.”

“Right. I forgot.” Sara let the subject drop for now. She had every intention of coming up with a way for B’Elanna to get to her heaven, no matter how long she stayed on earth.

The two women spent the rest of their vacation talking, hiking, swimming, and reading. It was the first time either of them had let their guard down with anyone in years. They talked about past relationships, ways to protect B’Elanna if she was ever injured. When they finally locked up the cabin it was with a heavy heart, they both had to get back to their real life, high stress worlds. B’Elanna had to go back to remembering to put her mobile emitter on when she was in public and Sara had to get use to her hiding herself again. Suffice it to say though; the drive home from the cabin was far less tense than the drive out had been. They chatted and joked about things they saw and explored each other without the defensive walls both had up before.


	8. A new beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> B'Elanna and Torres return to Vegas. How to those crucial first few minutes after returning to their real lives go?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very short chapter to help break the ice that has been my writers block. Well it's more like a writers mountain and I'm currently tunneling through that mountain at a pace of about about a millimeter a week. (honestly, was that a snail that just dug past me? it looked like he was speeding?) LOL
> 
> _________________________________________________________________________________________________

B’Elanna had expected earth shattering changes to happen in their lives the moment they pulled into her driveway. Somehow she was surprised when Sara simply handed over her bags, gave her a kiss on the cheek and whispered “see you later.”

“Yeah, see you later.” Torres turned toward her door, slowly making her way up the steps. She fumbled with her things until she got her keys in her hand. The lock clicked open; she turned the handle and opened the door with her foot.

“Wait!” Sara called out just as the door was shutting. She’d believed that she’d need space when they got back to give her some time to back out of the relationship they’d consummated over their vacation, but the further B’Elanna got from the truck, the more distressed Sara became. Sara tumbled out of the car and got to the front door before it swung closed. Torres turned slowly toward Sara. “We never talked about this part.”

“What part?”

“The whole what do we do when we get back home part.”

“Right. So…”

“May I come in?”

“You know you’re always welcome here.”

Sara flashed the sweetest smile B’Elanna had ever seen and stepped over the threshold. “So, can the ‘what do we do when we get home part’ include me staying here tonight? Maybe?”

“Definitely.”

“What about the next part?”

“The figuring out how we work as an official couple, as lovers part?”

Sara giggled; a bizarre foreign sound in her ears, even more strange was the fact that she felt happy. Actually happy; and secure enough to voice an opinion others might find odd. “The word lover is weird. Like it’s cheesy, cliché, it’s funny to me. Uncomfortable even.”

“So what would you prefer?”

“Partners? Girlfriends?”

“Either one works for me… as long as you consider moving in with me.”

“What?” Sara squawked, shocked at the implications of commitment.

“Move in with me. Or we can find another place. I’d offer to move in with you but my clothes would never fit.”

“Yeah well, I don’t want to move all that crap.” Sara pointed at the books and knick-knacks.

“So…”

“I’ll move in with you.” Sara took a deep breath. “In two months.”

“Why two months?”

“First off, I have to give notice to my landlord and two months is the proper duration. Second off, you have to ask your landlord if I can move in. That’ll also take time. And besides, in two months we will both be sure. We’ll see if we can deal with each others demons and work at the same time. I don’t want to rush this.”

“We have known each other for a long time now. I thought we were moving at a glacial pace and thought maybe we should speed up a bit.”

“Let’s just say I’m worried about how I’ll handle my first ever healthy long-term relationship, ever. I don’t know how to live with people. I’ve never done this. I need time to process.”

B’Elanna took a moment to think about this from her partner’s perspective. Given all the trauma in her life it wasn’t surprising that she’d be struggling with this. In fact, having her ask to spend the night was huge. “Alright. Two months. If you need more you tell me. I’m fine to wait. We can also keep the spare bedroom set up if you need space.”

“Thank you.” Sara smiled and approached her partner. Her hand found the mobile emitter and unclipped it. Instantly, B’Elanna’s real features flickered into place. She pulled B’Elanna’s lips close; brushing together when she whispered, “Hello beautiful!”

“Hi.” Torres replied. Glancing around to ensure the windows and doors were closed. No one could see her.

Sara breathed B’Elanna’s air for a moment, lips brushing ever so lightly, “I don’t need space tonight.” Sara pressed their bodies together finally connecting in a passionate kiss.

“Is that right?” B’Elanna gasped as the kiss broke.

“Yeah, you know, to solidify our bonding and stuff.”

“I take it you have a bonding activity in mind?”

“You bet I do.”

B’Elanna growled under her breath playfully. Then she dragged Sara toward the bedroom.


	9. Conflict

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter Sara crosses B'Elanna's line when it comes to breaching the Temporal Prime Directive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another short chapter. I hope it works for everyone :) 
> 
> **Contains minor spoilers for Grave Danger**
> 
> Enjoy, comment, have a great week!

The months flew by. Suddenly a year had come and gone. Both women worked hard to help the other overcome their personal demons. B’Elanna learned to be comfortable with her body and unashamed of her heritage. Sara discovered how to live with her trauma and accept affection. Torres became more proficient at twenty-first century social patterns as she taught Sara about her twenty-fourth century technology.

B’Elanna started working on some inventions that would help Sara’s employers. Believing that Sara had a point, if she wanted to avoid Gre’thor she’d have to find a war to fight. The war against crime seemed honorable enough. She was awarded a contract with the lab installing and designing new equipment. She started to expand her friendships to include Sara’s coworkers.

They had their problems, Sara’s drinking, and B’Elanna’s tempter but life was great. Both women had managed to deepen their connections with others through their relationships. And so it went until the day Nick vanished from a crime scene.

Sara called Torres in a panic begging for her to come to the lab. B’Elanna got there as quickly as she could; assuming that some malfunctioning piece of equipment was causing an evidence disaster (it had happened before). What she got was cornered and ordered to break every temporal prime directive rule in the book. “Lovely, you can’t ask this of me!”

Sara rolled her eyes, unable to understand what her girlfriends hang up was. “I’m not asking. I’m telling.”

“No.”

Sara sputtered in shock. “Please, he’s your friend too! You could trace the signal for us; with your equipment it’d take a few seconds to find him. You could data mine our files to find a suspect. You could find DNA evidence that we can’t detect.”

“And how are you going to explain that? Hmm? How do we do all that without me getting caught?”

“I don’t care!”

“I have to care. You know that.”

“Look at this!” Sara held a photo of Nick up, he looked panicked in the image. “He’s buried in a coffin running out of air. Just fucking do it.”

B’Elanna grimaced, her heart aching that she couldn’t help this situation. She wasn’t even sure she’d help if it was Sara in that coffin. (OK, if she where honest with herself she’d admit that yes, she would but this wasn’t Sara, it was too much of a risk.) She turned her back on her girlfriend and the photo. “I can’t Sara. I’m sorry.”

Sara grabbed her arm and pulled her around so they were face to face again. “What about honor? I thought you were working on that?”

“I am working on it and that’s why I can’t do this.” B’Elanna sighed, the pain in Sara’s eyes causing an ache deep down in her soul. “You have no idea what the consequences could be if interfered like this.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“If he’s supposed to die today than he _has_ to die today. If I disrupt the timeline too much it could spell disaster in the future, I could create a paradox big enough to destroy the planet.”

“All because Nick Stokes doesn’t die in a box? Yeah right.”

“Yes because he dies or doesn’t die, or someone gets hurt, or some criminal escapes. You don’t know what leads to first contact, or who triggers the next world war. One little miss-step and it could all be gone.”

“You’re such a hypocrite.”

She pulled out of Sara’s grasp. “Excuse me?” B’Elanna understood where Sara was coming from, she wanted nothing more than to help but she couldn’t. This argument was the exact reason she’d been reluctant to tell Sara anything in the first place.

“You go around inventing shit every day that helps us get the bad guys off the street. You’re tech helped us catch a serial killer off the street last month and you damn well know it, what about all the people he was supposed to kill? Huh? You invent ways to save the whole god damn planet but when it’s your own friends, _our_ friends, you claim timeline contamination. You’re just afraid of getting caught.” Sara hissed her voice full of scorn.

“You’re damn right I’m afraid!” B’Elanna yelled; voice rose to her fullest volume then she remembered her surroundings and switched to a deadly whisper. “You know full fucking well that if I get caught I’m dead. They kill me and dissect me. _After_ they torture me. At this point given that we live together you’ll get taken and tortured too! You can’t ask this of me it’s not fair.”

“So you’re choosing yourself over him?”

“You always knew it would come down to that. I have no other choice. I can’t help.”

“You’re a fucking coward.”

That was the line, the one that made Torres see red. “You know what Sidle, fuck you. Just fuck you.” With that she pushed Sara out of her way and fled. Once outside she took off, driving out of Vegas and away, she didn’t stop until she hit the coast.

Sara only tried to contact her once during that time. The voice mail said two simple and destructive words “We’re done.” Torres cried like she’d never cried before.

A week and a half later Torres snuck back into their home to collect some of her belongings and hid in her lab. She knew from news reports that they’d found Nick and that he was OK but that didn’t mean she was ready to deal with the fall out yet. As far as she was concerned it was Sara’s job to apologize to her, not the other way around.

It took another month before Sara came looking for her.

B’Elanna had been locked in her lab for nearly two weeks flitting from project to project. She’d had to use her “all clear codes” many times to provide the staff proof of life. She had taken to sending the codes an hour or so before the check in time just to keep them from intruding on her chaotic thoughts. Because of this practice, she was surprised when her intercom fizzed to life. “B’Elanna?” Amy, one of the security guards, called hesitantly.

“What do you want?” She snapped. “I’m busy.”

“I’m sorry to bother you but there’s a police detective here demanding to see you.”

“Who?”

“Detective Brass. Want me to put him in the conference room?”

“Fuck.” B’Elanna cursed. “Yes. Tell him I’ll be there as soon as I clean up.” She hadn’t showered in two days and her clothes were filthy.

Fifteen minutes later Torres opened the door to the conference room and cursed again. Sara sat stiffly beside Brass, hands folded on the table in front of her. She never even looked up. Brass glanced at her and rolled his eyes. “Take a seat Torres.”

B’Elanna growled. “Why?”

“Because I told you too. This has gone far enough and you both need to deal with it.”

“I have nothing to deal with. Sara’s the one with the problem.”

Sara finally glanced up; she had the hint of tears in her eyes. The absolutely lost expression on her face took all the wind out of B’Elanna’s sails.

Brass decided to speak before either woman could respond. “I don’t care whose fault it is. All I care about is that the two of you talk! Sara was so happy, happier than I’d ever seen her before and then all of a sudden, she’s handling Nick’s abduction worse than Nick! And you’re gone, she’s drinking again. She’s fighting with everyone. Never taking time off. Working quadruples again. She needs you Torres. So fix this.” Through the entire tirade Sara picked at her fingernails, refusing to look at her ex. B’Elanna stared at her, hoping for some indication that Sara wanted to get back together. Other than a slump in her shoulders, there was nothing of the sort. “Well. That’s my part done. Now both of you _talk_. I’m staying outside until you kiss and make up. Neither of you are allowed to leave until then.” With that he got up and stormed out leaving silence in his wake.

Sara continued to pick at her nails. Torres slumped down in a chair at the other end of the table. The silence lasted for ever. Finally Sara took a breath. “How are you?”

“Shitty.”

“I know. Me too.” Sara’s chair creaked annoyingly as she shifted. “I’m sorry. I was out of line.” She confessed.

“Yes. You were.”

Sara flinched. “It won’t happen again.”

“Until the next friend’s in danger.”

“Maybe.” Sara agreed candidly. “But let’s hope it doesn’t happen again.”

“We can’t just leave it like that. It’s not just us that we have to worry about. It’s literally the future. We gotta have a plan on how to deal with this if it ever happens again. If we don’t have a plan then I can’t trust you.”

“Agreed.”

“Good.” They both fell silent again.

Then Sara looked up. “Please come home. I’m falling apart without you.” Her breath at the end of her confession sounded suspiciously like a sob.

“I’m falling apart without you too.” B’Elanna whispered.

“So come home.”

“OK.” Torres said. She stood and came around the table. Kneeling down in front of Sara. “One week.” She said firmly. “Seven days from now we are sitting down and making a protocol. How to ask for help and what I can provide in the event of a life or death situation with family and friends. I promise to see if there are subversive ways I could help if you are reasonable in your expectations.”

Sara agreed whole-heartedly. Considering the epic nature of their argument, it surprised both of them how quickly they were able to let it go.  After an initial period of conflict things evened out between them and they returned to a happy healthy relationship. Then one night, two years later, Sara didn’t make it home from work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy a cliff hanger...


	10. Missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara is missing, how will Torres handle it?
> 
> *Spoilers for Living Dolls and Dead Dolls.*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am finally back up and running a bit. New computer (with an intact screen and reliable internet connection WHOOT). Honestly, I thought that the last chapter had been posted weeks ago and only just noticed that it hadn't posted (internet glitch maybe?) anyway... 
> 
> Hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think :)  
> _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It had been years since Sara had forgotten to call if a case was holding her up, long enough that when she failed to call instead of frustration or anger B’Elanna felt the cold hand of dread seize her gut. Her cell when straight to voice mail. Checking the news to see if there were any major events revealed nothing. Nothing unusual for Vegas anyway; a few bodies found, a break and enter, a couple homicides, and a motorcycle crash clogging the strip. Nothing with multiple bodies, nothing to warrant an all hands on deck order from the bosses. Sure, their serial killer case had kicked it up a notch but when they’d spoken earlier in the day Sara had said she’d be able to make it home. She called the lab, Sara had clocked out. When her lover was nearly three hours late Torres headed in. There she found Gil just about to go into his office. “Gris, where’s Sara?”

“I sent her home. She was exhausted. I need her at the top of her game. The miniature killer case has heated up again. We have a name.”

“When did you send her out?”

“Torres, I really don’t have time for this.”

Torres growled and grabbed his arm, “When did she leave?”

“Uh, I think three hours ago. Why?”

“She never made it home and isn’t answering her phone.”

Gil paled and spun for his office. Inside he found an addition to his desk. A miniature, one neither of them had seen before. Torres watched her girlfriends boss lift damaged toy car, revealing a doll in a CSI vest. Torres felt her heart turn to stone, a wave of ice flowed through her body followed by a wave of white hot rage. Grissom dialed Sara’s number Brass answered, they’d found Sara’s car. Torres followed when Gil ran out of his office. Moments later the team had assembled. “Natalie has Sara.” He said. Greg put his arm around B’Elanna’s shoulder. She shrugged it off, resisting the urge to rip his head off.

Things moved fast then, Torres was asked to go home and wait for a call, she refused and asked to help however she could. Grissom let her begin mapping out a search grid figuring that that was the place where she would do the least harm if it ever went to court.

B’Elanna was in a fog of worry and indecision. This was the moment. The one Sara had warned her of and now B’Elanna had to face the music. She was poised on the precipice, was she hypocritical for wanting to use it now? The answer was most definitely yes. She could likely solve this in an hour. But all her arguments to Sara remained, how to explain Sara’s miraculous recovery, how to answer questions that were unanswerable? She couldn’t do it. I was killing her but she couldn’t. They had an agreement.

It had taken weeks to come to hammer out a prime directive of their own. It dictated that Torres had to wait forty-eight hours after an abduction before she could use her technology to break the case and bring Sara home. Why forty-eight? Because if the CSI’s hadn’t solved it by then, it wasn’t going to get solved fast enough to matter, only in this case could Torres blow her cover and perform miracles. That didn’t stop the longing to go out and find her life signs with the tricorder. Instead, she resisted the urge to get that involved. Ever the sneaky one, she pretended she’d run the math in her head to plot out the most efficient search grids, when in reality she’d accessed her tricorder’s superior processing capacity.  As witness and Natalie’s statement came in she refined her pattern. She snorted when she heard that Natalie thought Gil was in love with Sara. B’Elanna requested a few minutes alone with their suspect, no one was that stupid. Part of her was please when she was told Gil lost it on her.

Instead, she refined her search more, confident that she’d narrowed it all down to a few square kilometers. At that point, it was a waiting game. Unfortunately, a storm hampered their efforts until morning. Then reports flooded in; they found the car. No body. Torres was invited to the scene with the rest.

Footprints wondered off into to the distance. B’Elanna set out at a ground eating lope that no one else could even hope to keep up with, praying that her knowledge of Sara’s hiking style would lead her to her lover. Torres was following the slight signs of Sara, Grissom and Willows behind her. Torres spotted a body, she took a few moments to note size, dismissing the victim and moving on. Grissom and Willows took a bit longer, letting Torres gain some ground.

Without using her tricorder, B’Elanna was able to work out Sara’s heading by applying what she’d long ago dubbed “Sidle” logic. Nick, Sophia, and Torres came upon her prone body at the same time. She was unresponsive, no pulse. Everyone’s attention was on Sara, B’Elanna was pushed back. She surreptitiously pulled out her tricorder and breathed a tentative sigh of relief. She was still alive; barely, but still alive. Only, knowing there was higher brain functioning and seeing her wake up were two vastly different things. So much could still go wrong. B’Elanna stood back and let the professionals handle the situation, at some point Grissom pushed her into a chopper. The fog of panic lifted when Sara opened her eyes. B’Elanna reached out and took her hand reassuring her love that she was safe.

Every time they were alone while Sara was in the hospital Torres healed all the minor injuries; Chasing away infections, easing some of the pain. Not enough to get noticed, there were no miracle healing rumors, but enough that Sara was a bit more comfortable and didn’t need major surgery.

That all stopped when Sara regained awareness. She refused even basic pain relief. B’Elanna accused her of punishing herself for getting caught. Sara’s wince proved she wasn’t far off the mark. Her slow recovery and frustration didn’t stop her from returning to work too soon. Sidle was working hard at hiding the impact of the trauma and she almost succeeded until Hanna West showed back up again.


	11. Stress relief Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara's close to burning out, B'Elanna has a plan to prevent this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next few chapters are all part of an elaborate plan that my wife and I discussed nine years ago when we first realized that I really wanted to try my hand at writing (Before I'd even discovered that fan-fiction was a thing). I told her I had a story in my brain that I really wanted to get out so she told me to recite it. I sat up late one night telling her all about this idea (complete with Sara and B'Elanna as the lead characters although we both agreed that in this I'd have been Torres and she'd have been Sidle). I've kept true to most of the idea's I presented to her that night. Although the story has grown significantly as I iron out details and become more proficient with getting the words out of my head. 
> 
> Please read, review, and enjoy!
> 
> *************************************************************************************************************

Sara became pinched and jumpy, she started pulling away from her lover, it became obvious that Sara’s job was beginning to weigh on her to a point where burnout was imminent. The cast came off her arm, she responded by working harder than ever. Dreams kept her up at night and she began to drink again. In response to this B’Elanna asked Sara to take time off. She refuses so B’Elanna appealed to Gil.

“Common Gris, she is burning out can’t you see that?”

“I don't think it's that bad. Anyway, what do you want me to do about it?”

“I want you to force her to take time off, like a month off. If she doesn’t take the time you’re going to lose her and I’m afraid I’ll lose her too.” Something about the way B’Elanna spoke forced Gil to reflect on the past few months and he realized just how accurate that assessment was. Sara had begun making mistakes, she was getting into arguments with her supervisors again. She’d been leaving crime scenes to compose herself, taking risks with suspects. He flashed back to the Durbin house and Sara refusing to leave an explosive filled house. Torres had demanded she be given time off then too.

“Alright… I’ll sign off on it. How long do you think she’ll need?”

“Give her 30 days off but give her a week’s notice. I’ll need that long to put my plan into motion.”

“What plan?” B’Elanna grinned and said “I have a plan. I’ll fill you in later if you promise to help me out. Oh, and don’t tell her it’s me who wants her to take the time, it’ll only make her resentful.” What else could Gil do, but agree.

That morning Sara came stomping into the apartment and threw her keys down on the coffee table. “He is forcing me to take four weeks off! He said, ‘starting on Monday of next week you are officially on leave.’ Can you believe that?”

“Love, to be honest I’m kind of glad. I’ll have to see if I can get the time off too.” With a snort, Sara headed off to bed and B’Elanna followed to see that her lover relaxed a little before actually sleeping. Over the next several days, B’Elanna began to plan what she hoped would be a welcome diversion from the stress of crime fighting. Sara slammed her way into the house around four A.M. after a full shift tying up loose ends before her leave. She was tired, cranky, and would have stayed if she hadn’t been escorted out by Gil, Greg and a security guard. Torres met her at the door; “Love why don’t you go straight to bed after work to re-adjust your clock a bit so we can spend the day on the couch tomorrow. You know, doing nothing.”

“I think I’d rather be at work.”

“Really?” Torres mock pouted, “You’d rather be slogging through evidence backlogs than curled up with me on the couch watching smutty romance films?”

Sara smiled, her whole body softening out of its ridged, frustrated stance. “You’re right, I’d rather be here.” She gave Torres a peck on the lips, “I see you in a few hours.”

“I’ll be here waiting.” After a soft kiss, Sara left for the bedroom to sleep. As soon as she was reasonably sure Sara was asleep, B’Elanna finished packing their things and got on the phone to set her plans in motion.

They’d been sitting on the couch after Sara’s nap for a grand total of forty-five minutes when the phone rang. Sara sighed and answered the phone when she saw it was Grissom calling. With a confused look on her face she handed the call over to B’Elanna, “It’s for you hon.”

“Hello… It didn’t… Damn I guess that means I’ll have to come in and fix it. Are you sure no one else can get it working? Agh all right see you in a few.” She turned a look full of misery on her partner. “I guess that means our current plans are on hold. My scope has stopped working and I need to go fix it.”

“Guess if they can’t have me they’re gonna get you huh?” Sara sighed.

Torres laughed at that and pulled her lover into her arms for a hug. As she was walking out the door B’Elanna turned back with an odd smirk on her face and called out “Try and enjoy yourself while I’m gone!”

Sara waved and shut the door, leaning her back against it and muttered, “I’ll do my best.”

‘ _Phase one complete_ ’ B’Elanna thought to herself with a self-satisfied grin. It was time to begin her own vacation. She called Grissom back. “Hey Gil, thanks. She totally bought it. Just remember to tell her to go with it if she calls you OK.” B’Elanna was already several minutes outside Vegas. 

“Sure thing! I just heard from Greg at the last stop he said that it’s done and ready to go!”

“Thanks Gil, you’re amazing!”

“Well good luck and call me to tell me what she says.”

Back at the apartment Sara dozed on the couch for a bit then got up restlessly to grab a few of her case files to look over. On her way, she flicked on her police radio. She went to her filing cabinet, opened it up only to find it empty. In a panic, she called Gil to let him know the files were missing. “Don’t worry Sara, I came over yesterday to pick them up so that you wouldn’t work on active cases on your time off, but don’t worry I’m sure you will be distracted with much more important things soon.” With that Gil hung up and Sara let out a low growl of frustration before throwing herself down on the couch, remote in hand content to flip for hours. She must have fallen asleep because the next thing she knew it was eight at night and someone was knocking on the door. She stumbled over and looked through the peep hole. Standing there waiting for a response was a delivery man. Sara opened the door, fully prepared to send the man on his way with a curse. “Are you Sara Sidle?”

“Yes, I am”

“These were sent for you, and I’m to tell you don’t worry and just go with it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Have a good night miss!”

She mumbled something like a thank you and kicked the door closed with her heel. Her heart began to race as visions of stalkers ran through her mind. Then she glanced at the tag on the box. It was definitely B’Elanna’s barely legible scrawl. Still hesitant Sara opened the box to find a single red rose and a decorative envelope containing a list of instructions, a map and a set of keys. The note read:

_Hi lovely,_

_I hope you took today to rest because the fun is about to begin! Use your CSI skills and come find me because I have run away. Your bags are packed and waiting in the bedroom closet. In the morning toss them into the car parked in our spot and follow the directions to your first stop. There is a gas station marked on them map that you’re going to drive to. I want you to top up the tank, then go in, and show your ID to the attendant. She’ll give you further directions at that point. Get some rest and think of me as you watch the DVD I put in the player before I left… Oh and don’t forget to bring your rose!_

_Signed the love of your life,_

_B’Elanna Torres_

“What the hell is this?” Sara growled as she picked up the cell to call her lover. It rang until the answering machine picked up. Instead of the usual greeting on the voicemail saying; “you have reached Torres please leave your name and number,” she heard, “Sara just go with it.”

Sara called Gil, his reply to her inquiry was “Sara just go with it.” She paced the length of the apartment for a while before she turned on the DVD to see what movie she was supposed to be watching. It was her favorite lesbian art film ‘When Night is Falling.” She went and grabbed some chips from the cupboard and sat down to watch it again for the twentieth time. Sara went to bed early and slept soundly with very few nightmares until her alarm went off, it was eight in the morning. She rolled over to turn it off only to have her cell phone’s alarm start crowing along with every other alarm in the house. Taking the hint Sara got up to turn off all the alarms and got ready to leave. After a quick shower, she grabbed her bag, the rose, the car keys, and headed out the door. For the first time in months Sara felt good about leaving the house.

Once in the parking garage Sara headed over to her parking spot, her Denali was nowhere to be seen; in its place was a stunning vintage yellow mustang. She hit the unlock button and to her delight the locks popped and the lights blinked. She put her stuff in the trunk and hopped in. In the cup holder, a small vase held a single red rose. She dropped her first rose in the vase with it and fired up the engine with a smile on her face.

The map said that she was to drive east for several miles until she came to a small independently run gas station. By this point she was seriously considering turning back because she forgot her travel mug and hadn’t had any coffee yet that day, but she pressed on filling up her tank as ordered. Once inside the musty old station she walked up to the counter. “Can I help you Ma’am?” There was a glimmer of humor in the attendance eyes because she recognized the car from the descriptions she had been given.

“Well I think you can, I was instructed to show you this when I got here.” Doubt hung heavily on her words but she handed over the ID. The woman behind the counter barely glanced at the picture before she stooped down and pulled out a brown paper bag, an envelope like the one Sara received last night and much to her surprise her own travel mug was handed to her, filled with steaming coffee. “You’re to open these once you’re in the car dear.”

“How much do I owe you for the gas?”

“Don’t worry about that, it’s been taken care of! Have a good trip.” With that the woman got up and headed into the back of the store. Sara practically ran to the car. While sipping on the coffee she opened the bag and was pleased to see a cranberry muffin, a bottle of water, a bottle of lemon-aid and a bag of sunflower seeds. She then opened the envelope.

_Please follow your map to the establishment indicated, when you arrive go in and show your ID to the nice man behind the counter. Don’t make any stops or you’ll be late! If you have to pee do it now_ _J_

_BLT_

Sara felt the caffeine headache receding as she pulled out of the station, her music blasting. She ate her muffin, drank her coffee, and enjoyed the scenery. It crossed her mind that she remembered giving B’Elanna her final road test on this stretch of the highway.

About two hours later Sara pulled into a little town that B’Elanna had been fascinated with for years. This was a place they came to when they needed to get away from big city life. Not surprising the address on the map was a familiar shoe store. Joey, probably the man behind the counter in the note, was working. “Hey Sara, your finally here! Are you enjoying your trip so far?”

“Hey Joey! Do you have any idea what is going on here?”

“Not a clue, all I know is I’m suppose to tell you to ‘just go with it’ and give you this. You’re so going to have to call me to tell me what happens! I think she thinks I’d blab the whole plan to you if I knew, and I probably would. I love my gossip.”

“I’ll call… if I ever figure it out anyways. What is it?”

“Oh, I can’t tell you that!” He said mischievously. “Read the letter now but you’re not supposed to open the box until tonight, something about keeping up the suspense.” Joey let out a twitter of a laugh and shooed Sara out the door before she could ask any more questions.

Sara pulled the envelope off the top of the box and opened it. This one directed her to a restaurant about nearly an hour down the road. The restaurant (as familiar as the shoe shop) sold the best tasting handmade veggie dogs in the state. She hoped that this is where she would find B’Elanna but it appeared that she was out of luck.

“Afternoon Sara, you’re right on time! Come on over here, your order will be with you in a moment.” Liz walked Sara over to a table that had a single rose lying on it. Hot Coffee was waiting and shortly thereafter, a veggie dog with all the fixings, curly fries, a slice of apple pie, and a strawberry milkshake were placed in front of her. Just as she finished Liz came over and handed her a note. “This is already paid for love, with tip. You had better get on your way. You wouldn’t want to be late.”

“Thanks Liz. See you later.” As she walked to the car Sara broke open the latest piece of the puzzle.

_Head to the ‘between us boutique’ as directed on your map. Hope you enjoyed your lunch babe!_

Sara decided to turn on the police radio that had been put into her vehicle, a touch that she was amused by, to listen in on some of the local goings on. It was around two in the afternoon when one of the dispatches from the local PD caught Sara’s attention. “This is a message for Sara Sidle who is driving through our district as we speak, hope you are enjoying your drive and your partner says just go with it! Drive carefully.” With that the dispatches went back to normal. Sara was in awe of her partner, who seemed to have thought of everything, and appeared to have the entire country in on the game. She couldn’t wait to find out how B’Elanna had pulled this little trip off.

Sara let out a laugh as she pulled into the parking lot of what could only be a porn store. ‘What’s next?’ she thought to herself as she parked the car and walked through the covered doors. “Hi, I’m Sara and I was told to show you this…”

“What?!? Oh yeah! I have a package for you from some guy. Here you go and have a nice day” ‘some guy?’ What the hell? Sara picked up the bag and walked out of the store more than a bit confused. The bag said in big bold letters ‘DO NOT OPEN’ and an envelope attached to the outside just like every other stop. The writing was still B’Elanna’s but if she didn’t arrange this than who did? Stalkers and murderers flashed through her mind again, but then she remembered the radio and Grissom’s apparent knowledge of what was going on. All she could do was “just go with it Sara.” With a smirk, she cracked open the latest envelope. The note directed her to head to a motel in the next town. The mustang shot out of the lot to find her partner, Sara was surprised to feel a bit sad that it was almost over.

The motel, which looked like any other cheap motel she had ever processed, showed no vacancies. She grabbed her bags and headed inside. After showing her ID to the guy behind the desk he gave her a sly smile and her room key. The room was on the ground floor and easy to find (Not even a murder central room much to her amusement). She was surprised to find it empty. Instinctively looking around the room she noticed a single rose heart high on the bed sitting on top of a blank DVD case. Curiosity beats out her disappointment at having to spend the night alone and she opened the case. Another letter fell out onto the bed. 

_Hi beautiful,_

_Enjoy a nice quiet night and remember to think of me, thinking of you._

_Love Lanna_

A few moments later, there was a knock at her door. A quick look out the peephole revealed a pizza delivery boy. “Sara Sidle, your pizza has arrived; the front desk said you were expecting me.”

“Uh, thanks… How much do I owe you?” Sara says as she opened the door.

“Oh, it’s already taken care of, including a huge tip” he said with a smile.

Taking the meal into her room Sara popped in the DVD and then she sat down to open the shoe box she picked up earlier that day. She found a beautiful pair of black high heeled shoes and having learned from her shoe crazy girlfriend she glanced at the label, apparently, they were Jimmy Choo heels. Curiosity sent her to her laptop and she was shocked to discover that the cheapest shoe by this guy was over $400! She shook her head at the ridiculous idea of wearing shoes that could pay for more than half a month rent (but still she was secretly pleased as she slid them on her feet and found them to be a perfect fit and almost comfortable). The movie was one she had meant to rent months ago called ‘But I’m A Cheerleader’.

Settling in for a night alone she couldn’t help but love her partner even more for all the effort B’Elanna had put into this trip. She fell asleep soon after the movie ended and again dreamed of nothing.


	12. Stress Relief: Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara continues the scavenger hunt for her girlfriend.
> 
> Please read and enjoy :) I always appreciate your feedback!

The phone rang in her room at eight a.m. The receptionist providing the wake-up call requested she come down to pick up a letter from the front desk. Sara dressed so quickly (still clumsy with sleep) that she tripped on her pant leg and almost fell, laughing at herself she slowed down and focused. She was instructed to be at IHOP on the other side of town no later than nine. Quickly, she rushed back to her room to shower and pack up, arriving ten minutes early to her first stop of the day. On her table was a single rose and a note telling her to enjoy her breakfast and then head to a gas station marked on the map. Soon after sitting down, the waitress brought coffee along with orange juice, a stack of banana pancakes, and a fruit salad. She smiled at the pancakes, they were not her favorite, but B’Elanna loved them so much that Sara thought of her with every bite. She savored the meal and thanked her waitress on the way out.

Just like the day before the gas station attendant filled up Sara’s travel mug and handed her a bag filled with snacks and drinks. She didn’t even have to pump her own gas this time; it was a full-service station. She asked if she owed them anything but again everything was already taken care of. The next note told her to head about four hours down the road until she came to a store called ‘Bath and Body Works’. She grimaced at the thought of driving so far, but as the last line of the note assured her, there was a reason for all of this.

_I know I’m asking a lot but I have a purpose, I want you to spend this drive looking at things purely for their esthetic beauty._

_Take your time, drive the speed limit, relax, and stay safe love._

Well, enjoying things for their esthetic beauty might be a bit of a tall order. It’s not something that comes naturally to Sara, she usually focuses on the small details and their potential danger, but in this case, she would at least try.

Setting out at the speed limit (well, alright she was about fifteen over the whole way but it was less than her usual twenty-five over), Sara did her best to see the earth the way B’Elanna did; surprisingly she found that it wasn’t that hard to do. With the music on and the world whizzing by Sara realized for the first time that she was wildly unhappy with everything _but_ her home life. Today, for the first time in a long time, she felt truly free and happy. It was a good feeling, not to mention eye-opening.

She was deep in thought when, to her surprise her latest leg of the journey ended at the requested shop around two in the afternoon. The time had flown by once she accepted her feelings of peace and content, for once living in the moment instead of impatiently waiting for the next moment to begin. Stretching out the kinks in her back from a long, non-stop drive she walked through the doors and introduced herself to the attendant with a smile.

It struck her that this trip was healing her in some profound ways, the entire time she was in the shop she didn’t think about being murdered, or when the attended would be found dead. She didn’t pay attention to anything that might be considered evidence either.

The attendant was the owner of the store. When he learned that she’d never been in a store like this one he took some time to show her around, exulting the products and explained their uses. Sara was fascinated in a simple non-cerebral kind of way, both by him and his products. He then handed her an envelope and two sealed bags. One bag said DO NOT OPEN; the other said open me tonight. Sara thanked the owner and he made an off-handed comment that the young man who bought this for her must really love her to be going to all this trouble.

Sara smiled and agreed with him. She’d just put a piece of the puzzle together. Greg had taken a few days off last week. B’Elanna had probably enlisted his help. Her girl may be a bit crazy what with the being an alien from the future and all, but she really did seem to love her. Her friends knew that and would probably have jumped at the chance to help her out like this. The note instructed her to head next door for lunch and so that is exactly what she did.

Another rose meets her at a table as well as lunch consisting of fresh squeezed juice and a summer salad with berries and nuts. The note on her table directs her to a shop several hours down the road. This time instead of being irritated by the drive time she smiled widely in anticipation. It was then that she realized that maybe she didn’t want this trip to end? Did she even want to return to work at the end of her vacation?

Sara shook those frightening thoughts away and refocused on the scenery and the music she’d turned on. Humming along to the latest songs on the radio, she slowed her speed even more. She even pulled over to take a few photos of wildlife and the landscape along the way. An hour into this leg of her drive The DJ on the station she was listening too captured her attention when he announced “This next song is dedicated to Sara Sidle, I hope your enjoying the drive. You’ll be there soon. Here is Melissa Etheridge singing _You Can Sleep While I Drive_.” A satisfied smile graced Sara’s lips.

            She stopped briefly at the shop and picked up another one of those mysterious ‘do not open’ packages and headed to the restaurant down the road where she was treated to one of the best five course vegetarian meals she has ever had. The seventh rose of her journey was waiting at the table and another note directing her to a bed and breakfast an hour away. 

On the bed that night she found a DVD, a rose, and two notes. First requested that she open the bag from the body shop. It contained a bottle of bubble bath, a bag of rose peddles, some scented candles, and a note telling her to relax. A knock at the door interrupted her preparations for a moment, she accepted the chocolate covered strawberries and glass of wine from the room service attendant with a smile. With her first sip of wine she realized that this was her first drink in two days, she acknowledges in that moment she’d been hitting the bottle pretty hard lately and vowed to cut back.

The bath was glorious! The fact that the tub had jets made the whole thing better. Knots came out of her back that she hadn’t even know were there.

Much to her embarrassment the DVD was a sex tape they both created a year or so ago. It was shot using 24th century technology and a great big dose of artistic flair. The note taped onto the case simply said “for your eyes-only Sara, don’t forget this! Enjoy.” She did enjoy the video and felt another few knots release by the finally.


	13. Stress Relief: Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara continues her trip to find B'Elanna. Anticipation builds.
> 
> Comments, suggestions, encouragement are always welcome :) 
> 
> Enjoy.

Next morning her wake-up call is in the form of breakfast in bed. She eats her French toast and fruit salad while twirling the ninth rose between her fingers. Her instructions require her to be out of the room and on her way by nine a.m. With a smile she sets out for her next destination (after a brief coffee and gas pit-stop at the station marked on her map). The drive, though relatively short was once again pleasant, relaxing even. However, when she pulls up to the address she’d been given she seriously thinks this is B’Elanna’s first mistake of the trip. Sara approaches the spa cautiously, as though it’s a crime scene. Her nerves spike, her heart pounding in her chest. She must have the read the map wrong! A staff member comes outside and flags her down, “Are you Sara?”

“Yes, yes I am.” She replied suspiciously.

“We were told you’d be reluctant to come in, here I have a note for you.” The woman smiles kindly and passes over an envelope.

_Hello Lovely, I know it’s out of your comfort zone but I checked this place out quite well, (if you know what I mean) It’s clean and    has very little bacteria. No flesh-eating disease I swear. I’ve booked you to get your hair and nails done, and for a massage. If it really makes you uncomfortable skip the massage. When you’re done there’s a restaurant down the road I think you might like to try._

Sara eyes the employee waiting with the door held open, her misgivings waning now that she knows she’s not getting some toxic mani-pedi or soaking in a fungus infested hot tub. With a tight smile and a shrug, she decides to trust her lover. The spa staff walk her through each step, explaining what they do, why they do it and how they go about ensuring that bacteria isn’t a problem, all while maintaining a calming welcoming atmosphere. Her massage leaves her more relaxed than she’d been in months. A stylist asks her what she’d like to do with her hair then chuckles at her wide eyed confused stare. “Do you want me to just do what I think will suit you best?”

“Sure. Uh, just make sure it looks good if I neglect it, I won’t take the time to style it. No perms, no pink.”

He laughed a delighted belly laugh, “Don’t worry, I got you covered.”

Control isn’t something she normally gives up very easily but in this case, Sara couldn’t find the energy to fight it. She lets him conduct his alchemy with dyes, products, and scissors. When the creation is completed, he turns her toward the mirror with a flourish letting her admire her new black, chocolate brown, and red streaked hair color and her a new, very stylish cut. Feeling more attractive than she has in years Sara finds herself smiling as she’s ushered onto the nail salon. The final bit of tension drains out of her when they pull out brand new tools to use on her nails; tools they removed from the packaging in front of her.

The restaurant she headed to after the spa is a locally run vegan place where she gets another wonderful meal and her tenth rose. Sara knows she’s getting close because she’s deduced that the end of the trip is when she gets a dozen long stem roses. The note the waitress gives her proves she’s right about the roses and her excitement level rises:

_Love, bring your purchases from the shoe store and “between us” into the boutique on your map. Trust me, there is a purpose._

Sara drove on and pondered the end of her trip, what had been planned for her now? Her attention was caught once again by the police scanner; the operator was speaking to her again. She turned up just in time to hear “Repeating message for Sara Sidle, your almost there, have fun tonight!”

At the clothing store the attendant practically vibrated with excitement and she directed Sara to a change room in the back. “You are going to be thrilled with this Sara,” she said excitedly “I couldn’t believe what I was told, it’s so romantic! So, like, put on all the stuff you have and this suit. I’ll be waiting outside when you’re done. I have a note for you.” Inside the change room Sara opened the paper bag from the porn shop and was happy to find a beautiful, probably incredibly expensive set of lingerie. The label (clearly positioned so she would know just what she had on) said it was from Agent Provocateur. The black lace and strap getup took a few minutes for Sara to figure out but once she did it was like a revelation. The bra hugged Sara’s breasts like it had been made especially for her, the suspenders accentuated her waistline beautifully. She felt sexier than she ever had before. Then Sara turned her attention to the pure white pant suit with its simple lines and wide legs. The pumps went on next and she took a moment to straighten her hair before stepping out of the change room.

Sara stood gaping at herself in the mirror. She looked sophisticated, beautiful even! Like nothing she'd expected to see when she looked at herself in the reflection. She'd always considered herself plain, nothing special but B'Elanna had (once again) proven her wrong. She was most definitely _not_ plain.

“You look stunning!” The sales rep crowed, “I was worried when the gentlemen who came in told me what outfit to pick and the alterations but it appears he knew you well.”

“I bet he did. Did he mention his name?”

“Oh, Greg? You mean he isn’t…”

“No, it’s my girlfriend doing this and I know she had help pulling it off. Figured it'd be Greg.”

“Oh my God, that makes it even more romantic! Can she give my boyfriend any tips?” 

Sara laughed to cover her wince from the woman's squeal. “Maybe.”

Her eyes were shining with romance when she asked, "So where are you off to next?” 

“I have no idea what’s going to happen next and that’s the beauty of it all.” 

“Have fun!” The woman said as Sara got into the car, mindful of the white suit. She opened the letter and felt a flutter of excitement when she saw the caliber of restaurant she would be going to. It was a five-star place with waiters in suits and mostly French on the menu.

Again, she was denied the company of her lover though. Sara was made to eat a luxurious meal complete with Champagne all alone. She was served tiny morsels of amazingly tasty food in all there were eight courses all designed to leave her pleasantly full but not stuffed. Her desert course was presented to her nearly an hour after her arrival and with it came one last note and the eleventh rose.

_“This is the last one I promise. Go to the Hilton next door. Everything is already inside. Which is good because we aren’t leaving for quite a while.”_

Sara practically flew out the door of the restaurant and into the front lobby of the Hilton.

*************************************************************************************************************************************

Image of the outfit Sara is wearing: 


	14. Stress Relief: Part Four, a bonding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara and B'Elanna finally unite in an earth shattering reunion that went deeper than either of them anticipated. 
> 
> WARNING sexy fun times ahead. 
> 
> Please read, comment and enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I took some liberties here with rituals and 'the bond' making it an actual mental tie between the two. I think it works for both women. 
> 
> *****************************************************************************************************************

A young man was waiting for her in the lobby. Without any prompting, he simply waved her over and escorted her to the elevator. To Sara the ride to the 46th floor felt like an eternity. When the doors finally slid open to reveal B’Elanna, holding the last of a dozen roses, sporting a lopsided grin on her face, Sara thought her heart would burst. The lift doors silently whooshed shut behind her, glancing back Sara hit the lock to ensure no one would interrupt them for the rest of the night. B’Elanna reached up slowly to remove the mobile emitter and there in all her beautiful glory was the love of her life dressed in calf length black corset. It had silk and velvet panels with sheer stretch tulle, the corset had laces up the back and accentuated B’Elanna’s muscular yet feminine form.

“How was your drive?”

“It was wonderful. I don’t think I’ve been more relaxed in my life. Lanna I…” Torres stalked closer to Sara, ending her sentence with a finger on her lips. Sara fell silent, expectant eyes tracking every move her lover made.

“Good. Now let’s get you out of that outfit.”  B’Elanna reached around and released the clasps on the back of her suit, sensuously slipping the sleeves down her arms, a single finger trailed after the material. Sara gasped, goosebumps prickling her skin. “God, you have no idea how beautiful you are.”

This time instead of fighting the complement, Sara smiled, slow and trusting. “Ditto.”

B’Elanna leaned forward, using her nose to tilt Sara’s head, nuzzling into the joint between her neck and shoulders. Pressing gentle kisses and little nips up to her jaw. She let out a possessive little growl that went straight to Sara’s libido. When she gripped her right hand, and brought it up to sniff at her wrist Sara’s heart started beating wildly, she returned the action with her heart in her mouth. They’d discussed instinctive mating rituals enough that Sara knew the implications of that action.

“Yes?” B’Elanna asked, Sara was surprised she could even think past her hormones to ask for consent at this point. It touched something deep inside her, she was more than OK with the direction they were heading. This had abruptly become the Klingon equivalent of a marriage ceremony and Sara could find no logical reason to refuse it. When she felt B’Elanna’s grip tighten and her fingernails bit into Sara’s palm she dropped her head back against her lover’s shoulder and groaned “yes” in response. Abruptly, the grip tightened enough to break skin.

B’Elanna, released her grip on Sara’s right hand and pulled her palm to her mouth, lapping up the blood that had pooled in little half-moons.  The coolly rational part of Sara’s mind muttered weakly about the dangers of sharing someone’s blood like that but even with her admittedly limited understanding of Klingon physiology, she knows that the risks are minimal and the instinctive need to taste one’s mate outweighed those risks. Sara glanced down and realized that her suite was now pooled on the floor around her feet. She stepped out of it and turned to B’Elanna expectantly. Rubbing her hand self-consciously, unsure for the first time since this little ritual started.   

B’Elanna reached down and scooped up the suit, gently laying it across a nearby chair. Then, all predatory focus returned to Sara, she took her hand again, thumb rubbing across her injured palm, and lead her through the suite and into the bedroom. The far wall was covered floor to ceiling in a mirror that reflected the stunning unobstructed view of the city below them. Giving the impression that the room was infinitely larger than it was. B’Elanna turned them both to the mirror after Sara had gasped approvingly at the vista. She felt so safe and secure in that moment that she didn’t even consider lines of sight and sniper potential.

With possessive hands B’Elanna gripped her hips tightly and turned them to face the mirror, her body pressed firmly against Sara’s back. Sara watched passively as B’Elanna ran a hand up her arm, the back of her finger caressing her neck and carding into her hair. The other arm slipped possessively around her waist, hand spreading out across her belly. Every movement B’Elanna made held a calculated sort of power that from anyone else would have sent Sara into a panic, but from her lover, it made her mouth water with what was to come. Sara, had to resist her natural inclination to totally submit knowing that B’Elanna wanted her to fight back, instead she let her eyes rake their bodies through the mirror and allowed a lecherous smirk to spread across her lips at the incredibly sexy picture they made standing there in their lingerie. 

B’Elanna’s own eyes tracked Sara’s gaze and seemed to anticipate her next move. When Sara pulled away, B’Elanna gripped her hair, pulling her head to the side, biting down her neck. Sara used her distraction and turned the tables. Twisting in B’Elanna’s arms to face her then quickly turning them to press her lover against the mirror.

B’Elanna chuckled, “You’re getting good at this.”

“Mhmm” Sara responded, trailing her own bites and nips along her lover’s neck, pulling much harder on her hair than B’Elanna would do to her. The bites were hard enough to bruise, in some cases coming close to breaking skin. B’Elanna tipped her head back against the mirror for a moment and enjoyed the tiny hits of pain. But her ability to remain docile could only go so far. Dominance came in many forms, so instead of taking back physical control she reached around and undid the claps holding the bra in place in a show of impressive dexterity (It had taken Sara twenty minutes to do the thing up to begin with). Sara gasped onto her neck and murmured “you’re too good at that.”

B’Elanna chuckled, “I practiced.”

Sara laughed out right, licking a path along B’Elanna’s collarbone before she replied, “I know you did. You weirdo. You get Greg’s help for that too?”

B’Elanna blushed, Sara admired the colour change as it spread all the way down to her chest. “He said that was too weird.” Sara’s deep chuckle warmed every part of B’Elanna, “I used the mobile emitter and an image of you.”

“Smart, sneaky and beautiful. What did I do to deserve you?”

B’Elanna pressed her leg in between Sara’s thighs and gripped her bum tightly. She leaned in and whispered, “You were born for me beautiful. Just like I was born for you.”

Sara gasped out “I love you,” as the bra, clips, and corset slipped toward the floor. Leaving her in panties and hose.

“I love you too.” B’Elanna murmured.

Sara pulled B’Elanna away from the mirror and returned the favor (surreptitiously using the mirror as an aid.)

B’Elanna pressed a kiss to her lips and mumbled “Cheater.”

“It’s not like you warned me to prep for this.” Sara shot back. Then she sported a calky grin as she pressed and pulled in just the right way and all the clips came undone in one shot.

“How did you?”

It was Sara’s turn to blush, “Had a case once…”

“Sure you did…” B’Elanna teased.

Any further response B’Elanna had died in her throat as Sara took a suddenly naked nipple into her mouth and bit down hard. That was the end of B’Elanna’s self-control, she cried out and grabbed Sara’s ass in her hands, hoisting her up, carrying her to the bed and tossing her onto it. Sara grunted, surprised by the sudden turn, but that didn’t stop her from trying to get another few nips in.

B’Elanna pulled away and stood, she slipped the last of the lace off her body and climbed onto the bed. Running her nails sharply up Sara’s legs, she gripped the remaining fabric still hugging her lovers body and shimmed it down her hips and tossed it behind her on the floor. Sara arched into the touch, her own breathy little growls and moans spurring B’Elanna into action. She slithered up Sara’s body, pressing kisses and nips along her lanky body.

“Baby, may I make love to you?” B’Elanna asked reverently.

“Oh god, yes. Please.” She replied, her back arching to press tighter against her lover’s body.

Sara gripped B’Elanna’s hair tightly and yanked her face down. The kiss they shared was equal parts fight for dominance and sensual loving caress. Sara was the first to submit, not that that surprised either of them, her legs spread when B’Elanna slipped a hand between them and pressed her seeking fingers into Sara’s heat.

Sara’s hips undulated in time with B’Elanna’s thrusting fingers, but then they were gone. Sara whimpered at the loss. “Love, please, I need you inside me.” She begged.

B’Elanna needed no further urging, Sara groaned when she felt B’Elanna’s dexterous clitoris grope its way inside her body, filling her. With each thrust Sara grew bolder, there were some parts missing from her end of the mating rituals that she was suddenly willing to complete. Easing B’Elanna’s right hand up, she sniffed at her wrist, this time, instead of just smelling skin she smelt something so perfectly B’Elanna that she didn’t even hesitate, she gripped as hard as she could, tight enough to break skin.

B’Elanna moaned, sweat broke out all over her body, this was something she never expected to have reciprocated. Sara worked with blood every day, she was nearly phobic of other peoples’, seeing it as an inherently bad thing when it was spilled. She’d been frankly shocked when Sara consented to having her own blood drawn and ingested, it blew her mind that she might have the action returned. The mating bond between them became unbreakable a moment later when Sara confidently took B’Elanna’s hand and laved attention on her palm with her tongue.

It was enough to push B’Elanna over the edge into the most intense orgasm she’d ever experienced. Howling her pleasure into the room, she had a fleeting thought of wonder, was this room soundproofed? But it slipped away as Sara tightened around her, her insides fluttering crying out around her palm her own climax, milking B’Elanna into a second equally powerful eruption.

Spurred on by hormones and ritual B’Elanna shouted “tlhIngan jIH!”

Sara gasped, and the moment she had enough air she shouted the appropriate response. According to Klingon faith, they were married. Sara was stunned for a moment. From the look on B’Elanna’s face she was also stunned. They both stilled, staring into each other’s eyes for what felt like a thousand years.

Then Sara began to move again, it took a moment for B’Elanna to get with the program, but when she did, there was no stopping her. What occurred after that bonding was so much more than sex or love making, it was an _affirmation_. Healing. Rebuilding. Leaving both women in tears, feeling whole for the first time in their entire lives. No matter what happened, this was right. This is what they needed.


	15. Quick authors note

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This story is not abandoned! I promise I will get back to it.

Hello all,

I am just providing you an update here.... 

I just recently went through a (almost sickeningly amicable) divorce (seriously, people kept telling us we needed to fight more, that it was unhealthily adult) with the person who I started writing this story with/about so I'm having trouble keeping the plot as light as it's been. I don't want to spoil the romance by letting my darker thoughts about "Everlasting love as a hopeless load of crap" bleed through so I'm taking a writing break.

I am also working full time and have 3 part time jobs to make up for the debts I was left with so time is an issue too. 

I promise that this story is not abandoned and I am working on it as often as I can but like I said, it's a struggle. 

I am hoping that in the next few weeks I'll get some mojo back.


End file.
